


Of Sailors and Soldiers

by panickedbee



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Case Fic, Dreams, Episode Fix-It: s03e03 His Last Vow, F/F, Fix-It, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Character Death, POV Alternating, Pining, Pirate References, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Sherlock Series 3 Spoilers, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2016-12-02
Packaged: 2018-04-19 04:59:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 81,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4733600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panickedbee/pseuds/panickedbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after Mary shoots Sherlock, John moves back in with him, but they are more tense and miserable around each other than ever. Unspoken words seem to hang in the air constantly, and they have no idea what to do about it.</p><p>Simultaneously, a serial killer runs free on the streets of London, creating crime scenes so odd that not even Sherlock can make much of it. Until he realises that the murders are actually more about himself than he would like them to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I have wanted to publish for a very, very long time. I even changed the direction of where this is going a bit, focussing more on the events of the cases that, in this version, have taken place between the time of Sherlock being shot and Christmas. It's a story about their emotions and love, about Sherlock's dreams in which he copes with all of that, and about the potential threat of Moriarty being back.  
> It's a bit dark sometimes. I like dark.

 

_„My brother has the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, yet he elects to be a detective. What might we deduce about his heart?“_

_„I don't know.“_

_„Neither do I. But initially, he wanted to be a pirate.“_

 

***

 

Sherlock Holmes does not talk much about himself. Actually he wouldn't tell anything about him or his past, not even to mention his childhood. It is, of course, granted that he has had one, a childhood, was a little boy once with far less knowledge about the world surrounding him. Before any facts of tobacco ash or corpses or studies about toes in fridges started to occupy his brain even in the slightest kind of way.

Probably, he would deny any of it. Well, it is certain and obvious that he was born bare and innocent, knowing only how to breathe and cry. A time where he ran around, on a never ending search for the unknown. When there was still so much he did not know.

There is clear evidence of a further existence of such a time, but he would never go into details. Would claim he deleted it, for example. Tell you it didn't matter. Convince himself that thinking about it would be nothing more than a waste of time.

But of course he remembers. There are things one can not simply delete, even if the name is Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street, where he hides and thinks without the distraction of the world, and the life of them who just see and don't observe. Even he cannot delete some memories, still deepening into his mind and his soul, the older he gets. They are important. Because there are the salient point, the beginning of the beings we have now become, so do not forget your roots.

As he slowly starts to understand, he will eventually accept. Some things will always come back to you, hunt you down until they get you, defenceless. This would be a brutal metaphor, but certainly one Sherlock could identify with. It happens. Started to happen now and then since Sherlock met Dr. John Watson, and now he finds himself enjoying it. Sometimes, a bit, just a little, but still. Childhood memories.

There is nothing else that could be done. He simply lies on the couch, legs stretched out, hands under his chin like he was thinking intensely, less tensely though. And as the hours go by without any sense of time, the detective flashes back almost carefully, even sighs quietly as he remembers one certain sequence of his early life.

He wanted to be a pirate. A fearless, savage, phenomenal pirate.


	2. Once Upon A Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock worries too much and it's John's fault, but he could never blame him.  
>  _Pressure point: John H. Watson._

Sherlock heard John coming back right after the front door got unlocked. He listened to the heavy steps on the stairs, the sound and pace of John's movements were telling him he had done some shopping after work, but Sherlock didn't look up, nor opened his eyes. As John opened the door, he seemed to take a moment, probably just watching Sherlock, waiting if he would offer him any help with the bags. If that had been what he was doing, he must have decided not to comment on his flatmate's ignorance. He had gotten used to it, and apparently it did not bother him anymore.

But it was bothering Sherlock. John not saying anything, not even sighing, not even seeming to care about any of it. They changed. Of course they did. Sherlock had known that after he had been gone for two years nothing would be the same again. Although, that was not what he had anticipated right after his return. Oh, how naive he had been, how arrogant. And now he wanted to punch himself for this exact arrogance. Because once John had let go of him, had learned how to live without him, he could never have him back. Not like it used to be.

Sherlock had changed as well. He had learned so much. But this kind of knowledge wasn't helping him this time, so why not delete it completely? It made him suffer, feelings did this to him, and it was the worst thing that had ever happened in his life. He had risked, and calculated, had tried to play the game and he had lost. He only ever lost when he started to _care_. And this first time he had lost the only thing (no, not the first time, not the only thing – his heart missed a beat), the only _person_ in his life that ever mattered to him: John Hamish Watson was lost.

They were living together at Baker Street again, but, to no great surprise, it was not how it used to be. Not at all. Too much had happened, and the circumstances were not exactly the best condition to rebuild trust and friendship. There seemed to be so much that was tearing them apart ( _Mary_ – his heart missed a beat); a rope that couldn't stand the cut of a knife anymore. A bridge, once used to connect their worlds, which was now rusty and broken. But reality was cruel, so very cruel, never letting go of them inside these walls which had been the home of a brilliant detective and his brave blogger once upon a time. A time that was over for _ages_ now.

"I bought milk," John raised his voice to get the message from the kitchen to the living room, so that Sherlock could hear him. His tone wasn't judging him, even though the only reason he had to buy a new carton of milk was that Sherlock had spilled the last one by accident. John wasn't judging him, and in fact he wasn't even doing anything else. He had not commented on it then, had not made a joke, not even complained. He had simply sighed and cleaned it up wordlessly.

So Sherlock was worried. And he actually never stopped being worried, not a single time ever since John had punched him in the face (more than once) and his nose had been bleeding in front of this restaurant (more than one restaurant). Back then, that was the first time that it really occurred to him what he had done. What he had _actually_ done to him. Of course, he had always thought about him, about their simple life in their flat, about solving crimes together again and just being there, just being there with John again, and all of that had kept him sane.

Therefore, it literally had to be a punch in the face which was supposed to wake him up and show him that this kind of life was now over forever. And he could do nothing to bring it back. Around that time, it had slowly begun to sink in how much he was missing this. All of it. How much he missed _John_ and that there was no one else for him. Even if there would be someone else who could stand to put up with him, (who obviously couldn't exist) he wouldn't ever get his heart back.

He was worried, and no feeling had been filling him so constantly, so consistently before. He knew, ever since the bomb in the underground train, he knew if he really wanted to keep John in his life, he had to be very careful. Everything and anything John had ever said to him was true and he repeated some of his words over and over in his head to remind himself that he was wrong this time. He was not meant to be a friend to anyone. But for John, he would try to be not exactly _the_ , but at least closer to the kind of a _best friend_ that this man deserved so clearly.

He was afraid he could have done it wrong already.

Sherlock was not exactly proud of what he did after John's wedding. The words of Molly Hooper crossed his mind once again, and for a single second he could feel her flat hand slapping him right in the face.

_How dare you throw away the beautiful gifts you were born with?_

Never had he respected and equally feared her more than in this moment. Which did not mean he believed her. He knew he was a gifted man, indeed. If he would think otherwise, he wouldn't have gone so far as to invent his own job description because nothing else had given him the stimulation to exploit his full potential.

The only consulting detective. The only one in the world. But even spelled out in such simple words it suggested a lonely existence. Wasn't going to be a problem, he had thought. He had never been so wrong. Sometimes he was thinking about how ridiculously dramatic he actually sounded. Well, he was a drama queen. He was a show-off. _That's what we do._

Another slap in the face. He jerked fractionally due to the intensity and pain. The memories could fool his mind so easily, and the direction in which the train of thoughts was going (stupid detailed mindpalace) seemed almost unstoppable. He was already too far away from reality and everything around him had disappeared long ago.

_How dare you betray the love of your friends?_

Those words cut deeper, deeper than the pain in his pulsing cheek and probably injured him more than anything else she could've said. It was stupid, stupid, stupid of him to think John would not care at all after he had found him in a drug den. Sherlock's death had possibly affected him more than him stumbling into John's life in general, so he would obviously mind if he died from drugs. It was so egoistic to think otherwise. So even if John would really owe him so much, like he had once claimed by his grave stone years ago, he often thought all might be better if he had just stayed dead.

Sherlock was feeling like he was a disappointment to John, because how dare he come back when John was about to propose to the woman he loved? How dare he put him in dangerous situations when there was a happy, domestic life waiting for him? Sherlock knew, of course, that was not what John really wanted. But within two years of processing, John had almost made himself believe that it was, until Sherlock showed up and turned his life around once more.

_How dare he?_

Suddenly, a wave of rage was rushing over him, perhaps he could just blame his self-hatred for that, but that would make him feel even worse. As he sometimes wondered if it would be better had he just stayed dead, he also thought that both of them might live a better life had they never met each other. His throat tightened just thinking about losing the best and only friend he would ever have, though he knew it would be a logical assumption. His heart would never ache again. He would have stayed lonely.

Sherlock should curse this beautiful, wise, kind being of a man for making him feel like this. Feel at all. Sitting in his armchair again after he had left the wedding, he had spent the rest of the night staring at the piece of furniture opposite him, listening to the dry silence instead of slow fingers on a laptop keyboard, instead of somebody's complaints about body parts in the fridge, lectures about his unhealthy eating habits and outrageous sleeping patterns. Silence in company when he played the violin, murmured random pieces of conclusions when he was about to gain consciousness again – nothing was left anymore, as though the John and Sherlock, who had lived in this flat together once upon a time, had died both through the fall ( _The Fall_ ). As though the time he had spent with John, the years before his _death_ , had never existed; evidence was memory, and memories alone.

Sherlock had removed John's chair to somehow avoid drowning, eventually, from something as disgusting as his own self-pity. Apparently, the army doctor had not understood, maybe had even seen it as an insult, but there was no reason to blame him. He had never tried to make John understand the _whys_  and the _becauses_  of his acts when they were emotions involved. That had always been a problem, the communication between them. (Or rather, no communication at all.)

Things became more complicated after Mary shot him.

She had threatened him in the hospital not to tell John about it. She wanted Sherlock to lie to her husband and his best friend again, and she had proven, more than once by now, how dead serious she was about her threats. It wouldn't even have taken someone like Sherlock to notice the look in her big, blue eyes that shouted unspoken words. That she would shoot him again if necessary. And that she wouldn't hesitate next time. A shot from which he wouldn't be able to save himself through some kind of miracle. _A kill shot._ (His mindpalace would be no more use to him if she was to shoot him in the head – everything deleted in a second.)

But she didn't shoot. Mary talked, Mary begged, and then she must have wished she would have shot him instead. After John appeared behind the corner.

 _John_.

Sherlock had tried all he could think of to prepare him for her big bad secret. John was anything but too stupid to not speculate that something was wrong, incredibly wrong.

The armchair reappeared at the fireplace and the room seemed to gain some of its warmth and comfort again. The perfume on the table – Clair-de-la-lune – _not Lady Smallwood, Mr. Holmes._  
And John did speculate, but there was no preparation for any of her truth. There was no number to call, no advice to listen to, no google search to make, when your own wife and mother of your unborn child turned out to be an assassin, hiding under a false identiy. Lied to you the whole time.

 

Nevertheless, Sherlock could not deny that he had indeed been prepared for _the day._

He had hoped for it to happen, dreamt of it, gone through each and every possible scenario in his mind. Twice.

It happened on a cold, wet day in the middle of autumn, any day passed by with the same amount of irrelevant time, there was no date and no event to make this one any special. Yet.

Clouds were covering the sun in a competition in which every single one wanted to gain most of the bright light, a farrago of white and grey, the sky intended darkness with the dullest lilac available. To everyone's surprise the weather had still been lazy enough to stay dry, mostly. Cold air surrounded London like a crystal clear fog.

That was the day when _it_ should happen, randomly and seemingly out of the blue.

Sherlock had set himself in front of the window, violin under his chin, bow in the right hand, he was staring into the great blanket of clouds, incidentally, but he didn't really look at it. His whole body was tensing at the sound of someone's steps on the crying stairs (they weren't _that loud_ ), the strings of his violin still vibrating to draw out their last tones, almost silenced.

Next thing he knew, John was standing still in the door frame, one suitcase on each side of him and a look in his eyes that was difficult to comprehend. _Guilt? Regret? Sorrow? Rage? Relief? No, it wasn't relief, anything but relief._ Both of them would not make a move, did not dare to, and Sherlock stared. Just stared. Unable to turn off his deduction skills (always the detective, he was) he couldn't keep his mind clear, everything swirled and buzzed inside his head, when it was too quiet around them.

_John: here – Mrs Hudson let him in? Improbable – he didn't hear the bell downstairs, nor their voices; she wouldn't spare John an act of smalltalk, always pleased as she was to see him these days – So? Let himself in? Possibly – meaning: he still had the keys to the flat – sign of: nostalgia; or: desire for security in case of reconsideration – Filed away for further investigation.  
Suitcases: two of them – lots of clothes in there – traces of former usage on the surface of the bigger one, the smaller one was hard plastic, few stains – indicating: big one was years old, probably a decade; he recognised it from the day John had moved in – so long ago, so far away – focus! – the other much newer, modern model, no older than three years – when John had left Baker Street after Sherlock– focus! Conclusion? Conclusion! Keep it up–_

Sherlock's breathing became more shallow as he tried to organize his wild mind. Wild it was, like a trapped animal following bare instincts. He kept staring at John in order to observe him, in order to keep himself distracted from being overwhelmed, but he couldn't stop _seeing_ him, right there, so much older, so much more to him.

It had all begun with raw and unexplained fascination for John. And now look at the detective, Sherlock Holmes, caring so much, _so much_. But no, no, he had to keep it up to make a proper deduction, he could not bear to give himself over to pure emotions based on unconfirmed theories. He tried to push himself, to stare harder, but all his mind was letting through was _John John John_ and _here here back here_. Something changed abruptly with John's simple act of clenching his hands out of habit, and something else was getting through Sherlock's sight.

_Face: paler than usual – looking slightly sick – muscles very tense. Eyes: bloodshot – bad or little sleep, for many nights ongoing – rings under eyes – restlessness. Badly shaven: right side cleaner than left; remaining bit of stubble uneven – Has been in a hurry? Remains of razor cut suggest. Hair: wilder – uncombed; not particularly windy this morning – would support the assumption of hurry. Shirt: button-up, crumpled – has been kept folded– Sherlock would have to stop here, unconsciously deciding that the rest of his observations didn't matter now, whereas his mind buzzed again – Suitcases, hurry, badly slept, two suitcases! John – Would he stay? Eliminate the impossible – what remains? JohnJohnJohn–_

John's expressive face was not giving away a clue for Sherlock to find or hold onto this time, Sherlock's eyes watched the floor and John, the floor and John again, on and off.

While his lips seemed to try forming words, his brain couldn't find any. What a rare thing to witness. The words were laying there, he could literally feel them right on the tip of his tongue, only something deep inside of his mind held him back again and again. It appeared so surreal that he should have John Watson back. Here. Back at Baker Street. (Had he ever had him?)

"So," Sherlock heard himself say, and he still waited for himself to continue, but apparently he stayed silent. John seemed tense, insecure in a way only a soldier could express it, when to an outside party he would appear proud and steady. Sherlock knew he must have been burning inside. He knew this kind of inner tension in John's body language. He knew.

A small smile touched Sherlock's lips, but he wasn't actually happy. Well, yes, happiness was one way to describe it. To a child, that was. Children didn't understand the varieties one stupid little emotion could contain. They didn't know that holding back strong bursts of emotion was regarded as mature, and that constantly holding in could cause psychological damage. Neither did they know that the older they would get, the more the complexity of such an emotion would increase and grow. Mind would be at war with itself while having to pretend on the outside to not feel at all. Because showing true emotions was _childish._ He tried again.

"The bedroom upstairs– "

He got stuck, wanted to look away immediately. Ordering his thoughts wasn't even an option after the back of his mind had made its deduction already. Though, he still didn't know what John was thinking, and not knowing was intolerable. Sherlock turned his head in another direction. Was he nervous? Why was he nervous?

It reminded him of the day John had visited him at Baker Street for the first time after two long years. Two years that one of them had spent as a dead man while the other one had grieved. Said visit had happened right after he had nearly been killed in a bonfire. As none of their reunions could ever not revolve around yet another crucial problem. A bomb. Drugs. _Mary._

"I-I haven't– "

Fortunately, John interrupted him, for which Sherlock was very grateful. Maybe this could mean the end of this difficult conversation as well as Sherlock's stuttering around in his lack of words.

"Works for me," John said, his voice low and rough as if the last few months had pulled the strength out of his lungs. Another talk where they were meant to talk about how they felt – successfully avoided.

_Open file: > Emotion talk > Containing: open facial expressions, truth, saying how you feel – Often: a lot of words (depends on topic and importance) – Usually: a lot of sentiment; requires: trust, an interested/good listener on the receiving end, an actual receiving end, courage_

Sherlock decided he could gladly skip such a conversation.

So they continued from there, just like it always had been. Never talking things out and keeping their emotions to themselves, fearing the other one wouldn't want or not care, and never ever did they talk about everything that went wrong. They were big catastrophes no one else wanted to bother with, huge misunderstood creatures, and poison. They could barely stand themselves, how would either of them expect the other one to do the same? It was all one hopeless miscommunication from the very start.

But that was how they worked. John had taken the upstairs bedroom, and it became rather easy to get used to the rooms and some old habits again. He also knew his flatmate (ex-ex-flatmate) well enough to know what he himself was agreeing to this time, sharing rooms with Sherlock Holmes. _The madman_ , how John had so romantically put it in his blog entries back then. Their time together had been very adventurous and maddening in fact, so he never regretted his choice of words, still meaning them in a rather endearing sort of way. Nevertheless, all of this excitement about their early relationship had vanished by now, and soon some old habits would not be enough to keep it all together. At least, that was what Sherlock feared so very much.

 

Back in the here and now, John had finished unpacking the shopping bags, and the sound of chinking dishes in the sink woke Sherlock from his daydreams. Because daydreaming was probably exactly what it would be called. It did not happen often that he would let go of the bounds of his tidied mindpalace and just give in. Strictly speaking, this was one of the things that had also only occurred after he had met the doctor. Daydreaming. _Giving in._

The little noises told him John had eaten and perhaps even drunken a cup of tea, so some time must have passed. Sherlock sat up on the sofa and looked straight at his former-current flatmate, perhaps more than a little puzzled.

"Have you eaten anything at all?" John asked, sounding a bit tired and also as if he already knew the answer. Sherlock shook his head in an almost innocent manner, like he wouldn't be able to feed himself up.

"Alright," John couldn't suppress a sigh, "I'm going to bed."

He was half out of the living room when Sherlock rose from the couch and was now standing in the middle of the room with no sign of purpose in sight. "John."

It was more of a question, but the way Sherlock pronounced it made it stand between them like a fact, and maybe John wouldn't have turned around. Maybe he would have ignored him, pretended that he had not heard it. Maybe he would have, if it wasn't for the unusual sound in Sherlock's voice.

Compared to the way, in which he spoke to any other human being, the warmth in his voice whenever the name _John_ left his lips was like nothing he had ever heard. He could use this voice of his to form the most delicate sounds, with the deep, uncommon rumble that reminded John of wood and forest, comfort and home, sometimes fire and explosions (if the man could do nothing about his excitement over a nice murder once in a while).

John looked at him, waiting calmly but confused for him to continue. Both of them knew that something was not right (God, all of London must know by now), but what happened now was not surprising at all. Nothing happened now. So they just stared. Not like they stared at each other back then, in those first days where everything had been easy and too good to be true; finding someone that made them feel more alive than anything else, and they had been so _alone_ and owed each other _so much_. No, not like that. It was the new kind of look between them, tense and hollow and terribly annoying to Sherlock.

He found himself standing in the middle of the room, barely able to keep himself upright. The _bullet wound_ still needed a lot of time to heal and didn't let him function properly. His legs felt so weak. He felt weak.

He was biting his lip now, another new habit that happened to surface whenever he started to become insecure. So apparently John was the only one to ever see him like that and it also bothered him, just not enough to actually talk to Sherlock about it. There was something he feared so much that he did not even realise it. The truth. Sherlock didn't start speaking or raising his voice again, it just looked like he was about to do that every second, but not a single word came out of his half opened mouth.

"Sleep well," he said at last, unsatisfied with himself. That was obviously not what he wanted to say. But well, he never really said what he wanted to say when it really mattered. So in other words, that was almost predictable.

"Right." John broke the tension by leaving the room and getting up the stairs. Times were difficult. John was unhappy. Sherlock suffered, but he wouldn't allow himself to let the pain go to his head. He didn't earn feeling bad. If he thought about it from a slightly different angle, it was all his fault anyway. People like him did deserve feeling bad. But John did not think so, did he? He wouldn't consider this angle. Sherlock simply had to say it over and over again and maybe, maybe he would believe it. _John cares about me. John Watson cares._

Not only because he always cared. Always and too much for Sherlock's general taste and his way of comprehension, but then it finally clicked. _Don't solve the murder. Save the life._ John didn't care because he always did (and that was so hard to get into Sherlock's massive mind), he cared because Sherlock did actually matter. And John had not just come back to Baker Street because he would've had nowhere else to go. 221B was home. It was where they had always lived, where Sherlock lived, and as much as it hurt these days, he wouldn't belong anywhere else. This, _they_ had been fate.

Sherlock never believed in fate, and found it highly illogical that he should start doing so now. It almost made him sick how emotional he was about this whole issue. How emotional he had been over the last few months, it was too much to take. As if all the emotions he suppressed for decades suddenly pursued him, wanting him, and now … now they had him. Yearning for him to bleed and suffer. Vulnerable and helpless.

_Pressure point: John H. Watson._

Sherlock had not noticed he was still standing in the middle of the room for several minutes. Alone. He shook his head twice to get rid of the irrational thoughts and gain some control over the contents of his own mind again. But it only gained him a headache.

Suddenly his legs felt oddly weak and for a second he feared they would actually collapse under his weight. His body was shaking once more. The injury John's wife had marked him with ( _marked him?_ ) stole his energy and his patience, offering him weakness and pain instead, although he had never asked for that.

He knew he would need to sleep, especially in his own bed and not on the rather narrow sofa. Sleep would only do him good, but something deep inside of him, a stubborn, childish reflex, was telling him that he should manage to stay awake longer. Not even twelve hours since he had gotten up. Giving in to something he wasn't in control of always bothered him, probably due to his rather manipulative brother. Unfortunately, not letting his body have what it needed to function meant giving in to a slow death sooner or later. So he did not have a great spectrum of choices.

Sherlock made his way to the bedroom, although the problem that he could only hardly hold his own weight nearly made him fall over if it hadn't been for the kitchen table. He was ridiculously grateful as he arrived in his room and let himself fall down on the mattress. The soft fabric of the pillows his face was now buried in made it rather easy to drift among the sweet bliss of unconsciousness and he could finally stop to worry. At least for a while.

For a while, he could just turn down the constant alertness of his mind. Concentrating instead on the warm sheets under his skin, the mild wind blowing through the half-open window, fondling his dark curls while he was sinking deeper into the calm state of a slowly building slumber.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Deaf Havana - Anemophobia](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoXuV4CeHC8)
> 
>  
> 
> _I still worry about the weather and I’m sick to death of rain_  
>  _And these panic attacks do nothing for my tired and swollen brain_  
>  _My days aren’t getting better, I’m still numbing all the pain_  
>  _I lost my mind and all my hope in feeling fine again_
> 
>  
> 
> _I’m holding out for a saving grace to show me the error of my ways_  
>  _I really need a change_  
>  _I’m not a pessimist but sometimes hope is missed or missing_  
>  _I haven’t felt so fucking drained. I need a break_


	3. Lies to Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John is absolutely miserable and confused, and nothing ever goes right for him. Oh, and how he hates that everything he loves is always lying to him.

John woke up with a headache and a bad mood. Furthermore, he got the feeling his recent sleeping position had caused him a bit of a stiff neck. Which certainly did not improve his mood. One look out of the window told him that dawn could not have broken yet, but he just didn't feel like sleeping anymore. It was too cold to sleep in only a tee these days. This became clear to John as soon as he threw the blanket off him to get out of bed.

He had gone used to that kind of state in which he sometimes woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't even remember where he was. Confusion and shock would struck through him every time he woke up in a bedroom once owned by a man who had thought he wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life right here. A man for whom Baker Street had been the most calming place in the world. A bachelor living with another bachelor who was still chasing after the woman of his life, a marriage, maybe children and a house somewhere in the suburbs. _Someday,_ this man had kept saying, _someday, but not right now._ Never right now. He had been as happy as he had imagined possible.

Now, about three years later, the same looking man, his hair slightly greyer, his wrinkles slightly deeper, woke up in the same bedroom and didn't know what he was doing here. Each time he would automatically face the left side of a bed too big for one man alone, searching for Mary.

_Mary._

Mary, his woman, his wife. Mary, the person who had made _someday_ seem less scary and almost close. Mary and him, a marriage and a house in the suburbs. A child. Everything he had always searched for and always thought he was supposed to want. No one could've guessed under which circumstances he should get his _someday_ and how desperately he would reach out for it. She had completely turned his sad, sad life around. Until Sherlock had come back from the dead.

Each time he would face the left side of his bed and search for her. Because she was supposed to be there. If Sherlock was dead and John wasn't, it could only be for her. Every night he would dream of _him_ and wake up and remember. But it was okay. There was Mary now, his _Someday_ he was always supposed to want. Mary, who he loved and could pretend to be normal around, could pretend to be a good husband and become a good father, until maybe one day he would not think of _him._ Maybe _someday_ he would not think of him.

Now there were _these days,_ where he would wake up, search for Mary and remember that she was his new reality, and he was forced to remember that it actually wasn't. Mary, the assassin, alone in their house in the suburbs, pregnant with a baby he would've been supposed to want and with Sherlock here – alive. He wasn't dreaming of _him_ anymore.

Mostly, he thought he wouldn't dream anymore. He knew that this was not possible – not dreaming. But he was simply not able to remember a single fraction of a dream he should've had. There was nothing. Nothing at all.

It did not alarm him. In fact, it caused quite the opposite. All the dreams that he could remember had always been nightmares (before he had met _him_ ), and being woken up by a creeping shudder, sweat all over his body and sometimes a frightening scream that turned out to be his own hollow voice, shaking from anxiety, was something he wouldn't even wish his archenemy to experience. If there would be archenemies in real life. So he was rather glad about his oblivion.

John let out a yawn as he searched for something to cover his arms with, a hint of goosebumps was already visible and he was even surprised by how cold his skin felt. He grabbed the first thing in his closet, his eyes had to get used to the darkness in his room yet. When his hand found something that appeared to be soft and warm enough to him, he grabbed it, and it turned out to be his fawn jumper. The one he had not seen for a very long time. It had been one of his favourites once. Also the same jumper he had worn on the day Sherlock Holmes allowed him to become a part of his world. Their first case and their first shared dinner.

The day had been amazing, surreal and absolutely unforgettable. John smiled just holding the cotton piece of cloth in his hands and thought about how it had all begun. It felt odd to him to think about how there were years between now and their first meeting. Everything still so innocent, so fresh and _right._

Yes, he had known that at first sight. That this would be, although everything seemed so wrong about it, the only right thing to do. He never regretted his decision of moving in with him. But it made him sad now. Because he knew why he had liked this jumper so much, and he also knew why it had been buried under a ton of clothes in the corner of his cupboard.

What had just happened to them?

He pulled the jumper over his head and was grateful for the warmth that flushed through his whole body. Though it vanished too fast and left an odd, empty feeling behind. Suddenly, a shiver ran through him, across his spine, his arms and he clenched his fingers. He was sure he deserved some of the pain he felt, but all of it? It couldn't be all of it.

John thought he might feel better after a hot cup of his favourite tea. He could also go to the bathroom when he would be downstairs. Maybe he'd feel a bit safer down there, however ridiculous it might sound, but their flat ( _their_ flat) had always been some kind of safe spot for him, ever since his first visit. It was a glowing core, hot and burning, at the same time cool and steady, like the ocean. And something always brought him back, no matter how far he drifted or fell apart, his compass would point in the direction of 221B Baker Street, and he got a funny feeling in his stomach whenever he climbed up those stairs. He was wondering – was this what coming home felt like?  
  
There had been times where getting this feeling was utterly impossible, and even looking at the front door made him sick. The time after _The Fall_ – no, he wouldn't even think about it again. Not now, not in the middle of the night. Sherlock lived, everything was fine, there was nothing to worry about. Expect that there was. The sickness that he had felt had now become part of his everyday life and the abstruseness would be incomprehensible for any other normal person. So he had to be crazy.  
  
After dissipating every thought out of reach that would just drive him further into his own self-pity, he was now about to get out of his dark room to stumble around their dark flat. John had only just made it out of his room when he noticed the dim light that was coming through from underneath the door that lead to the kitchen. It could not possibly be the daylight, he realised quickly after wondering for a few seconds. It had still been dark outside before he had left his room, daylight would be very unlikely.  
  
John didn't notice, but he was standing at the same spot for a few minutes already without moving, so his limbs started to stiffen a bit. Eventually, he shook his head. _Must be the weariness,_ he decided and went down the stairs and tried to be as quiet as he could be to not disturb Sherlock or draw his attention. Because it had to be Sherlock who made those little noises on the other side, hadn't it? He was going to get paranoid.  
  
He could not even dedicate said noises, but they were definitely there. The trained ears of a soldier would not betray him. Just as he was about to open to door, something surprisingly unexpected let him shrink back. It appeared much louder to him than it could have actually been, but the otherwise utter silence had him on edge.  
  
It was the sound of a violin. His brain quietly reminded him that a violin did, in fact, sound just like this and that (what a coincidence!) Sherlock did play this instrument. So it was Sherlock then. For a moment he didn't dare to open the door, worried that his flatmate would stop playing. When was the last time he had heard him playing? But the pressure in his bladder interrupted the train of thoughts, and he knew he could not stand in the hallway forever. Also, he couldn't rule out the possibility that Sherlock already knew John was awake and stood here, which would make the whole situation more awkward, the longer he waited.  
  
He tried to sneak into the kitchen and shot one look in the direction of the living room as soon as he had closed the door behind him. Sherlock was standing in front of the window, his back turned to him, and his arm was moving smoothly as his bow caressed the strings. He did not acknowledge his presence, nor did he stop playing. John almost believed that he had actually not seen him. Then he realised again that this was Sherlock and this man saw everything. (Almost everything.)  
  
Slowly, John made his way to the bathroom. As he paid close attention to any disruptions or hesitations in Sherlock's playing, he eventually started to _listen_. Actually listen. He almost forgot where he was going which could have earned him a rather unpleasant meeting with the kitchen table. But as he listened, he valued the beautiful, knowing and talented hands of the man who pulled the strings. For only a second he feared he might have disturbed his friend by closing the bathroom door too blatantly, but the wood only made a soft noise and the music sounded damped behind it.

He played so well, John couldn't help but think. _Fantastic._ The tones were getting higher all of a sudden, appeasing his ears with oh-so-soft strokes. John could feel how carefully Sherlock treated his beloved instrument. He had never heard him play that song before, not even something which could compare.

It was as though a tiny orchestra would have taken control over their flat, consisting of only one single, beautifully handed instrument, and again, John had _never_ heard him play like that before. Was that what it sounded like when the detective thought he was alone, when he was all by himself without company? But Sherlock probably knew that John could hear him through the bathroom door, John was very sure about that.

Everything that reached his ears was so very cheerful. It sounded familiar in a way, and at the same time like nothing he could possibly know. Sherlock usually was a very melancholic musician. Every other of his songs had been sad, expressed sorrow in a specific way, and was often as complicated composed as the man himself.  
  
Some tones were just tumbling by now, floating higher like the colour of the sun, lower again like a bird flying beneath the clouds and enjoying the view. Sherlock never played, nor composed a piece like that – old, somehow mediaeval, encouraging. John couldn't really associate a particular continent or epoch with it, but when he closed his eyes, it reminded him of sea and sand and he could barely taste strong rum and an odd kind of freedom. It made him want to dance. Sherlock's music made him want to dance with him.  
  
Sherlock would have to be moving his bow very quickly to obtain such sounds, such fine music, just with his bare hands. John adored those hands, not for the first time, and as he stood up to wash his own with cold water, he wished he could see him right now. Look at his hands and his face when he appeared to be so concentrated but unfocused and _loose_ all the same. This rarely happened.  
  
All of his current thoughts felt utterly wrong. John knew he shouldn't think what he was thinking. The friendship they had right now was difficult enough, by all means. Returning to Baker Street after he had finally found out the truth about Mary had been inevitable. He was almost concerned that she might know. Just _know._ But then he figured out that she _must know_ and that it didn't make a difference anymore. John could just admit everything.

He had not been himself for a really long time. He wouldn't have to hide the fact that it hadn't feel like home with her. Mary was not his home. The relationship with her had gained great potential to be _a_ home. The woman of his life, a marriage, a house in the suburbs. It could have been lovely. It actually had been very lovely, and as he felt something tighten around his chest, he wondered if he missed her.  
  
He did. He missed her like he had missed his life right here when he would be sitting in Mary's house. ( _Their_ house.) John noticed how his jaw clenched as he carefully looked at himself in the mirror. His whole former life with Mary was a lie. Sherlock's death was a lie. Everything in his adult life seemed to be a lie. Even his limp had been a lie. Sometimes he could feel it again, although he knew that his leg was absolutely fine, but even his body was betraying him.

But what was probably even worse than this whole (quite fucked up) situation in general was that, if he was being really honest with himself, he wasn't even feeling that bad. Mostly, he just felt a sort of emptiness inside his heart, mixed with a strange anger about nothing in particular. A dangerous mixture for sure, this holy bloody cocktail of emotions. Bloody fucking great.

John was breathing harder now, trying to calm down a little. Someday this internal tension would take over his heart and he would do something incredibly stupid. He would blame the first person who dared to come near him. It was meant to end in a disaster. Still, he was convinced that nothing could ever actually made him leave. Never again.

He let out one last frustrated sigh and left the bathroom. Back to the present, he was greeted by the beautiful sounds of a violin and he already felt ten times more relaxed than after all the pathetic breathing exercises Ella Thompson had taught him once. But she, of all people, had no place in his head right now. He couldn't stand yet another voice from the most sad era of his life. Not tonight.

At least Sherlock did look at peace with himself and the world right now. He also looked completely oblivious, but not exactly ignorant. He wore more of a childish kind of attitude, at the same time he appeared incredibly wise, as if he knew that he couldn't save all the problems in this world, and that he could learn to accept it. Sherlock seemed rather attentive within the walls of his own mind.

To John, he was always so innocent when he was in this kind of state, but never helpless. It was more of a juvenile sort of way. Juvenile, yes, that was the best word John could think of at the moment. He looked so young. Sherlock's whole appearance while he was unreachable and somewhere deep inside his own head was always very divine. He often wondered what he must find so much more exciting than reality itself, and sometimes he would watch him intrigued. _Oh_ , he had to sound like a silly, lightheaded teenager who was planning to write a love song about his first big crush, searching for metaphors.

_Metaphors._

By a writer, Sherlock would certainly be described as something natural. Not that John was one, he wasn't a writer. So he didn't know why, but the man who could have the appearance of a machine, who put more faith in technology than he would put in most humans – _that very man_ was bounded to nature in John's head. Forests, and sometimes wild jungles, flowing brooks and little wooden cottages. The smell of rain and dirt. Sometimes silent like dry deserts, or free like old forgotten temples on a mountain. Sherlock did things, instinctively and spontaneous, on the other hand he was brimming with intelligence and pure knowledge. He didn't just do things, he knew things.

John would like to compare him to snow. It seemed so fitting, and despite the coldness and paleness and great power that this white, mysterious winter monster certainly possessed, there were also so many secrets underneath its surface. John had always found snow utterly fascinating and snow flakes were nothing but beautiful. Every single one was absolutely unique. You could not see this beauty in the quantity, for it got lost in exchange for strength and sustainability, and all that a common human eye would be able the see then would be nothing more than a huge mass of white laying itself on top of the world. The thicker the layer, the longer it could survive. Snow was very defensive. Try to catch it and your hand will hurt from the coldness that it will encounter. Endure the pain and bear with the first moments of freezing, and it will melt in your hand.

John would like to compare him to snow.

He stepped further into the dim lighted living room. He stood behind his own armchair and Sherlock's back was still the only thing that was currently facing him, apart from his ruffled curls which shone almost golden in the warm candle light. (Wait a second. Candle light?)

"Sherlock?"  
  
"John," he said, still not looking at him but out of the window instead. At least he was acknowledging his presence. It was already getting brighter outside. Sherlock didn't stop playing, but the song seemed to come to an end; the melody was slowing down and the whole flat went quieter when the music did. His low voice had replaced the music to fill the room now. John thought he could feel it rushing through him when he said his name.  
  
"How long are you awake?" John didn't ask _why_ he was awake. It was probably for the same reason John was up too, so he could ask himself the same question. Also, he knew Sherlock would do whatever he wanted whenever he wanted anyway.  
  
"A few hours." Sherlock let his instrument sink and now his gaze seemed to glue on the window's glass. Was he avoiding him? Or did he look rather nostalgic? What did he miss?  
  
John felt something clench in his chest and a wave of worry was crushing down in him. But that wave would wash over him, remain as a lazy puddle around his feet, leave him soaking and wet. He felt sick just looking at Sherlock like this and he didn't know why.

"A few hours..." he repeated mumbling, because he hadn't really listened at first, the voice in his own head had drowned all the other noises for a second. As he let his gaze wander through the kitchen to search for a clock, he remembered what the actual second important intention of his (probably mid-night) journey had been: tea.  
  
He went to the kettle and turned it on, then leaned against the kitchen table to appear less tense while he was waiting. He bet it wasn't working at all. He was glancing over far too often as that his flatmate would not notice it, even if he wouldn't notice details for a living. John fetched two mugs out of the cupboard. One of them was embellished with the icon of the Royal Army Medical Corps – pale green leaves around a red snake, a lazy banner adorned beneath, a crown above it, both in the same red colour. The other one was just black. He didn't hesitate to fill the cups for both of them, although Sherlock had not asked for it. A hot drink would do them good, it was the middle of the goddamn night.  
  
John took his slow steps through the living room to put the cups down on the table. Or rather tried to put them down. The table's surface was an incredible mess consisting of dusty books, old case files and unfinished compositions, brutally opened, formal looking letters and a page more or less neatly ripped out of an astronomy book. Two or three magazines relating to even older cases (not that John thought Sherlock would keep them for sentimental reasons, and certainly not because he may even like them a bit) and a lighter. So John had to place the hot cups in both his hands on one of the chairs first. Still, he couldn't help but smile about this extraordinary chaos in which Sherlock kept his belongings.  
  
Always the little rebel, he was. Trying to break every rule and principle the government had to offer, ignoring unspoken taboos and manners and defaults of how to act when. Unless, of course, it proves to be vital for some kind of game because then he becomes the world's greatest actor within a half second, just to roll his eyes about other people's sentiment right after.

Yes, the stage had lost a phenomenal talent the day Sherlock Holmes had decided to become not a scientist, not a philosopher, nor a pirate, and no, certainly not an actor, but the one and only consulting detective the world will ever remember. He had to invent his own job description because he was so gifted and talented and intelligent. That was just ridiculous. This man was absolutely ridiculous. John had thought that for a few times by now. _Ridiculous and absolutely amazing._  
  
John took his time making room for the teacups and piling various books and papers to create a little mountain of messy order to finally take the cups from the chair and place them on the bit of table he had just tidied up. He sat down on the one chair that was a little warm from the where the cups had been, and he carefully lifted his own to his lips and sipped on his drink.  
  
There was only silence for a long while. Sherlock was still standing on the exact same spot, looking all dressed up and nowhere to go. One hand was holding the violin bow with a strong grip, the other carried the wooden instrument, and he himself simply stared out of the window. If John wouldn't have known better, he would have thought Sherlock looked a little sad. Left. Lonely even. Like a child. But he did know better, so it was obvious to him that Sherlock Holmes did not do these emotions. He worked alone. And he protected himself.

 _Alone protects me._  
  
John felt a little strange by now, as he was just staring at this dark man lit by candle light, a violin hanging listlessly at the end of his long, steady fingers. Sherlock looked like a painting. He was so annoying whenever he looked like art. John couldn't help but think again: What was it about these fingers? Long and thin and beautiful as they were. How would they feel against his own? Or on the skin of his cheek? The back of his neck. His waist. Down his spine.

 _Enough of this_. John couldn't let him stand there and do nothing any longer. He would have to speak up and talk to him. Not that he was nervous – why would he? But he kept worrying about how his voice might sound. He coughed. "I made tea."  
  
Silence.  
  
At first, Sherlock did not show any reaction at all. Though, if someone would know him the way John knew him, they might have seen how his whole body did lose some of its tension. Sherlock might be back to the _real world_ now.  
  
"I noticed," he finally said. He sounded a lot less indifferent than his words gave away.  
  
Silence.  
  
John had no idea what he was waiting for, or if what he did was even considered as waiting. John's mouth formed a kind smile and he looked at Sherlock, frowning. _Well_ , he thought, knowing that they apparently still had to play their little games to avoid actual conversations. _So be it._  
  
"Do you consider drinking it?"  
  
Little games. Dancing. There was this odd need in the air, the need to perform a little dance first, to speak in riddles and double meanings. The nonsensical need to dance around each other and never be clear about anything ever. And it was just now that Sherlock interrupted their dance, put his violin and the bow gently down on his armchair and stepped in front of the table John was supporting his elbows with. He looked down at him, at the tea, back at him and at the chair opposite John. Finally, he sat down.  
  
An odd tension was dominating the air around them once again. (Yes, the air, all the oxygen and nitrogen in this room, and – was it carbon dioxide, too? Sherlock would've known, John knows that much. John knows what Sherlock would know. He can't be sure about it, of course, but Sherlock would never disappoint him. Because Sherlock Holmes was, and always will be, the wisest human being that John Watson had ever met. He would forgive him anything. Most probably.) Nonetheless, a quiet like this had not much in common with calm or peacefulness. _Aggravating._ It felt aggravating _._ But no one intended to do anything about it.  
  
Just as their cups were almost empty and the content only lukewarm, John cleared his throat as if to warn Sherlock before he dared to look at him again.  
  
"So… Are you planning to stay awake all night, or–" He ended his question in the middle of the sentence, but they both knew that John wouldn't add some kind of syntaxely correct ending to his not-a-real-question-question. Because John didn't do perfection. _What a wonderful bliss that must be_ , Sherlock thought and how he admired the doctor for being imperfect and being okay with it. He still envied him.  
  
Sherlock appeared so smooth and eased in a way one rarely saw on him, even if one was his flatmate, best friend and … whatever else. He presented a smile to John that made him hold his breath for a second or two, and suddenly all the oxygen and nitrogen (and other gaseous elements the air usually consists of) seemed to have disappeared, so even if he wanted to, John would find himself unable to breathe. For a second or two.  
  
Soon it occurred to him that Sherlock's low voice filled the room again as he was speaking so gently, so unlike him. "Don't think so. My body feels worn out all the time, it's exhausting."  
  
Sherlock was so openly exposing himself (measured by Sherlock standards). He didn't seem especially annoyed, he actually just seemed to be exhausted of being exhausted. John did not want to pity him. Sherlock would never ask for pity. But this pure, raw honesty was deeply unsettling. All the honesty. Was he alright?

John did not intend to sound offending, but he simply had to admit how strange it felt to him; Sherlock all honest, not hiding behind some defensive curtain of sarcasm or cynicism. His face and his expression were for all to see, unhidden, and John really didn't want to think of The Night again. But he was quietly sitting there in his chair and helpless while thoughts and memories made their way forward into his mind's eye. They wrapped themselves around his willpower and broke it without any effort, so that John found himself sinking deeper into the past. A past where he had not been married, Mary had her fake identity still upright, and Sherlock had been his wedding planner. Every time he blinked, a new image appeared.  
  
It made him want to wonder. These past months – had they actually happened? Or could it be that it was only a horribly, miserably, deliciously realistic dream which let him be here right now, here again at Baker Street? Then he suddenly realised that, despite all the dreadful events and all the pain and the losses and heartbreaks, he so hoped it wasn't. He hoped it wasn't a dream.  
  
Back to the here and the now, John. This here was not just some poor version of Stag-Night-Sherlock. Instead he was sitting here with a true reality right by his side, and a very real, very not-drunk (as far as John was concerned) Sherlock Holmes in front of him, and as he was thinking this, he noticed how much he actually liked his name. It was an artistic name, wasn't it? A really weird and uncommon one.

He had thought so since he had first heard it, back then on his way to St Barts with Mike Stamford, an empty coffee mug and a cane. He had thought so the first time he had typed it – a lazy web search, which provided some really interesting facts – and he certainly liked it all the more since the first time he had heard it out of the mouth of the very man himself.

It was art. And it was fitting perfectly. His name was as rare and unpredictable, as pretty and ridiculous, as charming and funny as the detective himself. If someone was to ask him who he was, and what the hell he thought he was doing to that corpse, he would vocalise it with arrogance and pride. _Sherlock_ , oh, what a name that was indeed, followed by a surname, _Holmes_ , an as common one as was his own. _Holmes and Watson_.  
  
John thought about their very first meeting once again this night. About how audacious and arrogant his friend had been as he said it. _The name's Sherlock Holmes and the address is 221B Baker Street_. He had him. Five minutes in a bloody laboratory in St. Barts Hospital and he had him. That impossible bastard of a man who had managed to turn his life around _completely_ ever since. The bastard with the pretty name.  
  
"Sherlock Holmes …"  
  
John didn't even realise how he mumbled the name under his breath, because he had been too lost in thought. But of course _Sherlock_ had heard him. Wouldn't be surprising if one day he found out how to hear other people's thoughts and deduce everyone to death. (Luckily, he had decided not to be on the side of the criminals. London would've been destroyed at least fifty-seven times by now.)  
  
Sherlock looked a little confused. Well, John not saying anything for minutes and now answering with a sheer whisper of his name was very confusing. He stopped looking confused as soon as he noticed that he was. The infamous line between the brows softened immediately. Now he was looking more puzzled, a bit surprised. As if he thought he might have done something wrong.  
  
"Yes?" He asked politely and it became official. Actually, it did not, but the dimly lit living room, the low voices reaching overly sensitive ears and maybe even the now cold but still very English tea made it appear so. Just that it wasn't official. It was all behind a thick, dusty surface.  
  
John would not dare to look at him right now. He kept his gaze on his cup and its emblem which had been so meaningful to him once. _In Arduis Fidelis,_ said the little banner. _Faithful in Adversity,_ said John's automatically translating brain. He could use some of that now, couldn't he? Some faith.  
"Sorry, er, I didn't … I'm going to leave you alone now."  
  
He tried to smile the awkward moment away, and failed. Standing upright now, he took care of the two cups and headed to the kitchen to place them in the sink rather harshly. After that, he quickly stepped back into the living room again and found Sherlock watching him intrigued, as if they were at a crime scene and he did see something Sherlock had missed. Normally, John would cherish such occasions, his heart would skip a beat and fill with pride. _Normal_ was something he wouldn't add to a description of his life at the moment, though. Nothing was _normal_ anymore, because every kind of routine had died away after Sherlock got shot.

 _Sherlock got shot. By Mary. Beautiful Mary. Beautiful perfect Mary shot beautiful perfect Sherlock. Mary was a lie. Sherlock had lied. Damn it, damn it, bloody fucking damn it._  
  
He couldn't save this anymore. "So. Sleep well, I guess. Or don't sleep. But you should get some rest." John wished they could both sleep well and in peace for once. Because besides being a doctor who knew about healthy sleeping patterns, he was still Sherlock's friend and wanted him to heal.

Something deep inside him told him Sherlock had wounds all around his heart that could leave never fading scars as soon as the bleeding stopped. Scars no one would be able to see, hidden underneath the surface of the real one. The one which had actually placed itself next to his heart. (It didn't place itself there, it got implanted.)  
  
"Sweet dreams, John."  
  
John narrowed his eyes and let them wander around the fireplace for a while, just to get his thoughts sorted a bit, but it didn't help. After another while, he exhaled a short breath and looked at Sherlock one final time. He looked gorgeous in the candle light, shadows emphasising his exceptional face in all the right places.  
  
"Okay. Thanks."  
  
By the time John left the room to go to bed once again, Sherlock got up as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [The Dear Hunter - Is There Anybody Here?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrtMD4sxfbU)
> 
>  
> 
> _A pain I simply can't express_  
>  _From troubles I have long repressed..._  
>  _...and then, there's you_


	4. Burning Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Yes, a case," John answered her instead, sounding irritated again. "His game is on again, apparently, and someone has to stop him."
> 
> "Oh, Sherlock," she sighed, hand over her mouth to hide an affectionate smile. "I can assure you there is no use in trying that, dear!"

John started having nightmares after Sherlock fell. He barely remembered what it would feel like now, to have a nice, pointless, ridiculous, little dream. But he remembered having nightmares. He remembered the dirt in his eyes weakening his sight, the gun laying heavily in his hands, and then the ground comes closer and a grenade erupts the earth, sends shivers through his whole body, and betrays his ears until he can hear nothing but a constant high-pitched ache in his head.

He had never known what they meant, had thought the memories of the war were haunting him. Until Mycroft had pointed out to him that his therapist had miscalculated (had theorised without all the data, Sherlock would say) and he reconsidered. He didn't miss the war. No one missed the war, people couldn't say that. The weapons industry could say that, but that was entirely different and maybe even political correct, because they were able to boost the economy. John was just a single soldier, and he didn't miss the war.

He missed the adrenaline fastening his pulse, making everything around him look brighter, sharpening his senses and letting him save lives and end others. He missed the steadiness for which he was admired by those who he could stitch up, the casualness with which he could clean huge, ugly wounds and he missed the smell of blood and dirt and smoke.

He was always craving for danger, as long as he could remember. Climbing the highest trees and risking to fall far. Saving his sister from big, barking, teeth baring dogs and knowing he might get bitten (he had been bitten, then tried to patch himself up before his mother found out). Going to war. Getting shot. But he only ever wanted to look death in the eyes and fool it.

What he never wanted were other people around him being in danger, and maybe that was why he became a doctor. Although his title did not prevent any of the bad things from happening to the people he loved. He could only stand back and watch helplessly while his sister Harry started trying to drown all her problems in alcohol since … well, actually since her not-so-successful outing and from that point on.

He could only stand back and watch helplessly, one hand pressing the cold phone to his ear, and listen as Sherlock said goodbye to him and jumped. And that was it.

Sherlock would jump and jump and jump further and further every night, with the pool of blood getting darker yet, larger yet. So much blood. He would hear the crack of his forehead hitting the pavement over and over, that terrible sound like the neck was breaking, but he hadn't even been able to hear that. Yet, it was anchored deep inside of his mind, and once he would see the pretty blue eyes becoming grey and lifeless, by no later than that point he would wake up anxiously and sweating.

 

John stopped having nightmares after Sherlock came back. He stopped having any kind of dream at all.

He would like to think those occurrences were connected, like a magical bound that would cure his soul. Or a sign from God. Something John never believed in. For him there had always been one universe, one lifetime, and maybe, _maybe_ the possibility of a world beyond. It was clear how it was going to end. We all die in the end, he had always known that. No rebirth. No waking from the dead. No zombies, no epidemic. He just knew that it would not be some sort of fairy tale or science fiction book plot that would destroy the human race. It would be a war, at worst. Maybe just a natural catastrophe, but humanity's responsibility nonetheless. _Because we are crap at taking care of the beautiful and unique,_ he'd say. Thinking he failed.

That was why he found it most unrealistic to believe that if there was a God it would somehow save them all when they just prayed and begged hard enough. But when you are desperate, he had learned, when you are about to exhale your last breath on this earth, you would do anything, you would hold onto your life like a hungry dog craves for a bone. And if there really was a God then he had been very merciful to let John Watson see another day and just curse him with an ugly scar on his left shoulder for the rest of his life, instead of the nothingness of death.  
  
He had never prayed for Sherlock to come back to life. He had grieved and drunk, begged in front of his gravestone, which was probably as desperate as it got anyway. But he had never prayed. Because if there was a God, he might have been merciful to let John Watson live, but then he would've taken Sherlock Holmes' life instead. Sherlock Holmes, the man who had saved him, the man who claimed to had been saved by John as well, and that would've made God not only sadistic, not only bloodthirsty. It would've made him vicious. And John didn't want to believe in that.

 

John started searching for Mary after Sherlock got shot.

He woke up from his dreamless state and searched for her in his bed that had never been their bed, always needed a few moments to calm himself, to remind himself that Sherlock was alive (fooled death twice) and Mary, the last thing in his life he had been able to rely on, was gone. Or rather, _he_ was gone because Mary was not reliable at all. But he hated reliable. It was just that he didn't remember the last time when he should have had a proper sleep. Almost as if, during the last three years of his life, he was always tired.  
  
He stayed in bed longer than he would usually allow himself to. Work was waiting for him, and as _she_ wasn't working there because of her pregnancy, there was no way of meeting _her_ in the clinic. Or having to stand Sherlock. There were a lot of boring people coming and going day in, day out, and John preferred pretending, for only a few hours a day, to be one of them. To be just what he knew he looked like: ordinary.

 

***

  
No work was waiting for him. Sherlock had not taken a proper case in months. His brain literally ached and craved for something challenging, something occupying, just _something_.

Drugs. It had been a solution more than once. A dirty, sloppy, cowardly one, of course, but it held down the pain. His brain wouldn't feel like it was about to explode. He knew he couldn't. John was here, goddamnit, he couldn't screw this up.

Sherlock nervously tapped with the fingers of his right hand on the kitchen table, the other one was playing with a pack of cigarettes. He sat on a chair across his microscope, but he didn't have anything to examine.  
  
For a few seconds he was holding his breath and stopped in motion completely. He tried to hear if someone was moving in the room upstairs. John should be awake already, but he couldn't hear anything. For a moment he actually considered heading upstairs and waking him up, should he still be asleep. A loud voice in his head told him that this was a very bad idea.  
  
After one last miserable try to hold himself back from opening the package in his hand, he chewed on his bottom lip and let out one slightly frustrated sigh before he took out one of the cigarettes and closed his still nervously fidgeting fingers around the silver zippo lighter that had lain next to his microscope. He flicked the cog a few times and set the orange filter between his lips, placed between two fingers, before yellow sparks and eventually a long flame lit the cigarette's paper. The ash was glowing in a deep orange colour as Sherlock pulled hard on the filter in his mouth. He visibly enjoyed the smoking, _god_ , he wanted to devour that thing. He closed his eyes and inhaled again, so slowly and suddenly so calm.  
  
His hands stopped shaking and his mind stopped spinning and hammering against the insides of his head, and he needed more, more of this. After finally taking the cigarette out of his mouth again, he pursed his lips and blew out a grey cloud of smoke, watched it as it wafted through the air. Looking down again his eyes widened as he saw John standing in the middle of the living room.  
  
They stared at each other - well, John just looked at him frowning. Sherlock was the one staring, and no one uttered a word. How could he not have heard John coming down? Had he become more careful or was Sherlock just slowing down? He immediately felt the guilt for having smoked, the fag still fuming in his other hand. There was no reason for feeling like this, John probably knew he started smoking again a longer while ago. He must have, he was living with him. _He was living with him_. Sherlock shook his head ever so slightly, and tried to focus.  
  
"I'm off to work now," John said and was about to leave the flat. Off to work, of course, he was fully dressed already. God, he was slowing down, he was slowing down, he was slowing down. In his panic he tried to deduce his flatmate with intense gazes. His hair was just a bit more messy than usually, stubble on his jaw - not shaved in a while, was in a hurry this morning - clothes kept folded still... He couldn't help but remember Wiggins' deduction, which had even amused him back then, but now - ready to pack, ready to pack, ready to pack.  
  
John was out of the door right after Sherlock could pull himself out of his racing train of thoughts. He was alone. John hadn't said anything about the smoking. It had annoyed him in the past when he had forbidden him any kind of drugs (apart from caffeine, obviously), and how ironic it was that Sherlock was missing this now.

No more arguments, no encouraging words, no doctor's orders, no more hiding his packages in fairly obvious places (Billy the skull, why didn't he think of that?). If he would at least yell at him. It was as if he just didn't care anymore. You know what you had after you lost it, someone said once. What a bastard that must've been.  
  
So what was left for him to do? There was no work and John wouldn't be back in the next few hours. He were even better off sleeping. Pathetic. He never liked going to sleep. Having to leave his body in the hands of his instinctive brain functions.

Boring, annoying, unnecessary. But. Dreaming, he had to admit, wasn't entirely boring at least. Right now he would do anything to distract himself from feeling so miserable all the time. And how he despised it.

Sherlock threw his fuming cigarette in the kitchen bin, and disappeared behind the door of his bedroom.

 

***

 

John got killed.

Not literally. But he could have been. He was out of the flat for less than a minute when his phone vibrated and he took it out to read the message. (He had made a mental note by now to never do that again while he was crossing the road.) _Mary_ , it said on the screen, and a soft pain struck right through him. Opening the message and reading it would be his second mistake, because he immediately stopped in the middle of the frequented street. He felt like he might just pass out for a few seconds. But apparently he didn't even have to pass out himself. It seemed like one of the drivers would rather do that for him and just run him over.

John was in shock for a few seconds, but could have been enough to get his head smashed and bleeding on the asphalt, still staring at the screen of his phone. The driver didn't turn out to be a murderer, though, (probably much to Sherlock's disapproval, was the only thought coming to John's mind in the split second between actual death and survival) and she just hooted a few times as she only just managed to drive past him. He thought he wouldn't be able to hold his balance and fall down anyway, but he nearly stepped in front of another furiously hooting driver and had to jump backwards. Falling down then would've been a deadly mistake.  
  
Somehow, he was safely standing on the footpath again. The side where he was coming from. _Take a deep breath, John,_ he told himself, still in shock and processing what had just happened. He didn't even know what had almost been the death of him. A car crash or Mary Watson.  
  
Under no circumstances was he going to the clinic today.  
  
John went up the stairs to their front door and quickly unlocked it. He practically ran up the seventeen steps, didn't even know why he was hurrying so much, but he got the sudden desire to see him. Just to see if he was okay. He opened the door roughly. The living room was empty, just like he had left it five minutes ago.  
  
"Sherlock?"  
  
He had no idea why he was shouting. Suddenly an odd smell caught his attention. He figured it must be coming from the kitchen, so he slowly walked through the room to check if everything was still in order. Maybe one of Sherlock's experiments again? But Sherlock wasn't sitting at the kitchen table anymore. The smell was so much more intense here, and instead of an experimenting Sherlock he found … _fire_?!

Holy hell.  
  
Right in the corner of the kitchen stood a little bin, full of crumpled paper and perhaps some broken petri dishes, innocently burning and melting away. Now John had a reason to shout.  
  
"Sherlock!"  
  
The bin was waiting calmly, while John felt like he was going to explode. Being able to be angry for a bit was probably all he needed right now. "Sherlock!"

 

Sherlock woke up to the sound of John shouting his name. He sounded furious. As Sherlock sat up on the mattress, he just couldn't help but feel a childish thrill, starting from his suddenly quicker beating heart, electrifying his limbs for only two seconds. John sounded furious because of him, like he had some years ago. Yes, and John could talk to him like that, yell at him. Sherlock would sulk on the couch. He would know that John cared. And when John would leave the flat to get some air, he would come back to him, eventually. That's what would've happened, some years ago.  
  
Childish enthusiasm it was, really, that let a cheeky smile spread across his face. He might have done something John could be upset about and make him react gorgeously predictable. His face would display it perfectly.

 _Open file: > John being furious: > First signs: John becoming very quiet. – Often followed by: John breathing heavily/vocally. – Furthermore: John swallowing (theories so far: attempt to swallow down his anger?). – Always occurring: John pursing lips, hallowing cheeks–_  
  
A loud knock on his door made him sit up bolt upright. Something had to be very wrong to get such a reaction out of John … Something he had done, indeed. He quickly run through a mental list of things that could have been upsetting. He had not left any kind of body parts in the fridge (he hadn't contacted Molly in a while), he had not experimented for at least a week now _,_ and he also had … oh. Now his nose pointed it out, slightly before his mind could wrap itself around it. _Toxic smoke._

 _John was back._ Apparently, his mind had its own priorities. His nose might smell the smoke, but his brain was fogged with something entirely different. (How dangerous.)

Sherlock stumbled out of his bed, still a bit dizzy from his constant exhaustion. He could not be sure if his wounded body was making him tired or if it might just be the inactivity he was forced to tolerate somehow. He got out into the hallway to find John pouring two cups full of piped water into the burning bin. The bin looked unimpressed.

When he saw Sherlock, a whiff of relief blew over his face and left as soon as it had come. Now, he only looked extremely annoyed. He started sighing very loudly.

"Sherlock, why is the bin on fire?" The slight wavering in his voice indicated more than annoyance. John must've been trying to control his anger. Yet, Sherlock could not help but think something else had happened. And when he said think, he meant deduce.

"You're back already?" He asked instead, trying to control how his body reacted to that. A wave of delight rushed through him, stroking some place in his chest. Warming it up. (Or maybe it was the fire.)

John was only frowning like he could not believe what was going on. It seemed like an indoor fire around noon was not one of the things he had been thinking about while deciding to move in with Sherlock Holmes again. Sherlock Holmes, to whom he just looked up, uselessly holding the two empty cups in his hand, and slowly starting to rub the bridge of his nose. "Yes, thank God," he mumbled, "Otherwise, I might've come home to a gutted flat."

Sherlock did not listen anymore, after that. He kept focusing on this one word out of John's mouth. _Home._ He might've come _home._ That was nice. Hearing that, even if the context was questionable, and he didn't even mean it that way right now. Very, very nice.

"That's enough, Sherlock. No more smoking."

At that, all Sherlock could do was grinning. Who would have known that a sentence like _No more smoking_ one day would be all he wanted to hear?  
  
"And would you stop looking so bloody pleased, for Christ's sake?"  
  
That didn't sound too good. Oh, of course. Obvious, really. John had not been in a good mood to begin with. Almost everything Sherlock could do from now on would only make it worse. Even when he didn't do anything. Apparently, you could not not communicate.  
  
"Don't just stand there! Get a bucket or something."  
  
John swirled around, already on his way to refill the cups and tried to fight the fire when Sherlock disappeared in his room again. "Oh, perfect. Just perfect", John whispered under his breath in annoyance. He really wasn't doing so well. What he would never admit to anybody, though, was that a bit of stress and an aim for his anger was all he could have hoped for at the moment. Being angry made him feel purposeful.  
  
He had not expected Sherlock to come back with a big red utensil in his hands. "Stand back, John," he said, aiming for the flames, when all the doctor could do was to unintentionally obey and stand back to stare at him. Sherlock painted the bin white with foam and a hissing noise was coming out of the extinguisher's hose.  
  
"Why the hell do you have an extinguisher in your bedroom?" John started shouting as soon as the fire was defeated. He didn't even want to know the answer to that question. He just wanted to shout something.  
  
Sherlock did not seem to mind being yelled at, as he was calmly putting the extinguisher down onto the kitchen table. "It has proven to be a smart decision since the last incident." He looked at the now melted and very ill looking something that has once been their bin. "I'm just hoping you didn't lose anything but your temper in it. My binned fingers from last week don't smell very delicious, I would recommend to only roast them next time."  
  
But the detective was clever enough to shut his mouth now, before John made him shut it violently. The way he looked at him, smiling so dangerously unfriendly like he would happily be committing a murder in his head, made Sherlock's skin tingle in a rather unpleasant way. Not that he would be frightened of murders. It was only that it would be a shame to him if he could not be able to investigate in his own murder. John would be such a not boring killer, he was sure of it.  
  
"Sherlock", the not-yet-killer got him out of his pointless thoughts, warning him with the kind of rough voice that wandered directly down his spine. "This isn't funny."  
  
John's patience was on edge, and he really wanted to hurt someone. Not even Sherlock, necessarily. He knew the man did not deserve his rage. Did Mary deserve it? He should not even dare himself to think that far. But it was technically very unfair not to blame her, or not to consider her for earning a punch just because of her gender. Or her pregnancy. He knew that. It didn't matter anyway, as she (fortunately) was not here, and Sherlock was.  
  
He would not punch him. Only yell at him some more, louder and stronger. So he raised his voice once again. "How can a man of your intellect be such an utterly idiotic dickhead sometimes? Do you have any idea what would've happened if I hadn't I come back just now? You could've died! Being burned alive, Sherlock! Do you ever think of the consequences of your actions, the impact on other people's life, you egoistic piece of a–"  
  
His row of insults ended with the ringing of a phone, which startled them both. John had come closer and made himself appear taller, so he seemed to have sucked in all the authority in the room, which left Sherlock looking rather small and insecure. It was _his_ phone ringing. He was watching it out of the corner of his eyes, afraid John that might actually hit him, should he try to answer it. A feeling of guilt had caught and dominated him, made him wait for John's permission to touch his own things.  
  
"Yes," John may have read his thoughts, answering the unspoken request, "Go get that damn call."

The detective still did not make a move, as if he believed John would only fool him and hit him anyway. (He kept thinking about that since their unfortunate reunion.) His gaze was wavering between John and the phone that wouldn't stop vibrating loudly. With one last look and a pulling down of mouth corners he picked up the mobile without letting John out of sight. He looked unmistakably annoyed, having his arms crossed like that. Don't turn your back to your enemies. Or your army-doctors, in this case.

Eventually, Sherlock answered his phone. The one on the other end must be used to be left waiting. And indeed, he was.  
  
"Sherlock Holmes." A short pause. "...Lestrade?" His question was rather a surprised stating of the obvious, but then Sherlock's eyes lit up with the unspoken hope he always almost managed to hide behind the layer that was his face whenever he called. _Case_. But where Sherlock's eyes started lighting up, John's narrowed and Sherlock must have felt it because he looked at him, shortly after, with an expression of implied guilt he also didn't manage to hide.  
  
"Look, I wouldn't call you if it wasn't important. You know that, do you, Sherlock?"  
  
"Yes," he said slowly, carefully taking his gaze away from John, who was glaring now.  
  
"Is everything alright?" Lestrade asked, because Sherlock didn't sound like Sherlock usually sounded, and that alone was worrisome. After all that had happened to him, to him _and_ John, it would not be a surprise.  
  
"What?" But Sherlock found the dynamic in his voice again, and finally understood what Lestrade was doing. And frankly, even if he had time for this, he wasn't one to bother with something so tedious. "What, yes. Fine. Get to the point, Graham,“ he snapped.  
  
At that, John frowned at him. He was pretty sure he was trying to suppress a grin. Or maybe not. Maybe not this time.  
  
A sigh was clearly audible through the mobile phone. "Still not," Lestrade said. Mabye _he_ was trying to suppress a grin. Sherlock didn't feel better about this, though.  
  
"Listen, something has happened. A murder, as you might probably have guessed. But it's ... it's a bit difficult to explain. And I think you should see it for yourself."  
  
John was still looking either angry or pretty irritated. Probably both. He did not understand what Lestrade was saying, but he wasn't stupid. He could imagine very well, and he had lived with the detective long enough to be able to tell by his face. He wasn't even cross with him, the almost-destruction of their flat forgotten, but rather with the person on the other end of the line, and was currently pretending he could glare through the phone with his eyes transmitting the messages _How dare you_ as well as _What the hell is wrong with you, can't you solve your own cases for once?_

But Sherlock, as surprisingly mad as that sounded, did not observe this. He just saw John's anger, and something that was hot and cold at the same time ran down his neck. He swallowed, but tried not to show it. _Concentrate. Just ignore John._ God, how long could he fool himself and pretend he'd be capable of that superpower? Maybe some absence from his doctor would actually do him good.  
  
"Give me an address. I'll be there as fast as I can."  
  
When the call ended, there was an awkward silence going on, only disturbed by a tapping of fingers on Sherlock's touchscreen as he checked his messages. John cleared his throat to get his attention and make him notice that there was still a huge problem standing between him.

"So he's serious?"

Lestrade had become quicker at sending text messages, Sherlock notified, as soon as he read the address to the crime scene and memorised it. Habit. "Who," he asked.

"Lestrade … About consulting you again?" John knew he loved that word. It wasn't even on purpose.

"Yes, why wouldn't he be? You've seen his people work, it's not really that surprising that they'd be needing me again after–"

"Why wouldn't he– Sherlock, you've been shot by–" No, he would not go there again. "Doesn't he realise that sending you to a dirty crime scene is actually a bloody bad idea?"

Sherlock put his phone in his pocket and went to get his coat. An opportunity to get away from John for a while was exactly what he needed now. „Oh please, I think I can take care of myself, John.“

He could hear him growl behind him and didn't know how to feel about that. Getting away as quickly as possible sounded more and more appealing.

"No. No, you cannot. I'm your doctor, Sherlock, and your friend and I'm coming with you."

Sherlock forgot that there were such things as shoes, and he sighed in annoyance. All of this just slowed him down, limited his chances to escape an argument. How stressful.

"Didn't you have something like work to go to?" He snapped, becoming frustrated as he tried to bend over to put his shoes on. Suddenly, a cry of pain surprised him, and he realised it was his own voice and his own pain that startled his body. The bullet wound. He had almost forgotten about it. Thanks for the reminder.

John helped him sitting down on a chair and shook his head. "Look at you. Claims he can take care of himself and can't to lace his own shoes. You're such a pretentious dork sometimes, Sherlock."

And he wanted to reply to that and disagree, he really did, but when John knelt down in front of him and started lacing his shoe with a serious, highly concentrated expression, as though he was treating a flesh wound, he lost his voice and everything else he might have wanted to say.

"I know you don't want me there," John spoke quietly beneath him, „but sometimes we have to make compromises. And this one's me letting you look after those corpses without running off on your one this time. Understood?“ The anger has completely blown out by now, leaving his voice soft and reasonable.

Sherlock averted his eyes, although he knew no one was looking at him. It would have almost looked like sulking. Almost. "It's not that I don't want you there with me …"

John blinked up to him under long lashes. His gaze rested on his neck and the little freckles on the pale skin. He had always thought that there was more to it than just attractiveness. This was aesthetic. Magnificent.  
He quickly looked down again, and finished the other shoe in time, right before his mind could think about their positions, with him on the floor and Sherlock above. But as unfairly as life liked to treat him, there was another image appearing before his inner eye.

_The pool. Just the two of us. Almost nothing alight, except for shimmering, aquamarine water, which we both ignore. High on adrenaline. You, on your knees, ripping my clothes off in the dark. Me, unable to move, wanting to watch and close my eyes at the same time. Wanting this to go on forever, wanting earth to stop revolving this exact moment to have us lost in here, together. High. Just having escaped death. Just having each other, and a gun, and explosives. So young, Sherlock. We were both so young._

He tried to recall how being angry with him felt like to distract himself, but it had little use. Anger seemed fluid around a Holmes, and it vanished as soon as it had the chance.  
  
Sherlock stood again and went to grab his coat.  
  
"Do you need help with the coat, too?"  
  
"Funny," Sherlock said, getting his arm through the hole.  
  
"Is it?" They stopped in motion. John looked him in the eyes, blue steel.

 _He wasn't joking?_ Sherlock sucked in the bit of air that was currently not swirling around John's presence, as all the air felt thicker, and he didn't know what of it he was allowed to inhale. They stared again.  
  
"Sherlock?" Mrs Hudson called from the stairs. It set them moving again.  
  
Sherlock quickly walked to open the door and just went past their poor landlady like the prick he had the reputation to be. _International reputation._  
  
"Sherlock?" She asked again, confused, and John went past her, too, always one step behind the detective.  
  
"John? I thought you were working-"  
  
"Not now, Mrs Hudson, we're on a case," came from downstairs.  
  
"A case?"  
  
"Yes, a case," John answered her instead, sounding irritated again. "His game is on again, apparently, and someone has to stop him."  
  
"Oh, Sherlock," she sighed, hand over her mouth to hide an affectionate smile. "I can assure you there is no use in trying that, dear!"  
  
Two seconds later, the door got closed. Loudly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Flyleaf - Set Me On Fire](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boe6D4qJkoY)
> 
>   _Now I feel the fear rising up_  
>  _Climbing up, taking over my body_  
>  _And I feel my pulse starting up_  
>  _Waking me again_
> 
>  
> 
> _Open my eyes, I'm reaching for you_  
>  _Set me on fire, set me on fire_  
>  _I'm burning inside, I'm waiting for you_  
>  _Set me on fire, set me on fire_


	5. By the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was passive, barely noticable if one wasn't paying attention. Sherlock had been, of course, but declared it as unimportant. But now it was probably important to at least keep that passivity in mind, because once they had entered this particular room, it hit him.

The ride in the cab was quiet. Not the usual quiet. Take that first meeting kind of quiet and eliminate the excitement, the adventure and the nervousness out of the atmosphere. Add a bit more of awkward silence and tension.

John started concentrating on Sherlock's breathing, unusually heavy and occasionally interrupted by a few deep sighs. He interpreted them as one of Sherlock's expressions of frustration about his handicap. But he wouldn't doubt that breathing had to be painful for him.  
  
John would've liked to tell the driver to just turn back immediately, then drag Sherlock to bed (not in the romantic way), maybe check on his bandages again ... if he wouldn't know this would be absolutely pointless. Sherlock needed this case. His cravings came through more and more, recently, and he had no desire to find out how far Sherlock would go if he was desperate. With a twinge in his gut he thought back about the day he had found him in a drug den, high and outworn and undiscerning that he should have done anything wrong. John feared that soon cigarettes would not be enough to do it for him again.

He had mostly tried to turn a blind eye to it, since he knew his friend wasn't doing exactly fine, mentally as well as physically, and if he was truly honest with himself, he also had not been in any kind of mood for lectures. So he focused more on trying to be a good doctor than on being a good pseudo-therapist. Alright, he had never been anywhere near a good pseudo-therapist, mostly because he was an addict himself. But he couldn't say that he was focusing on being a good friend to him. He wasn't. His selfish, stubborn head got itself all filled up with his own problems. And Sherlock was avoided.

 

"Come along, John."  
  
Sherlock had left the cab already, while John had still been lost in thought, so he had slipped out and left it to him to pay the cabbie. Just like it used to be. To be honest, _this_ he hadn't been missing.  
  
When he got out, the pavement was wet and muddy from days of long showers and storms. The clouds were grey chaos dominating the sky and it was a little windy. All in all, the weather was very London.  
  
John wasted a bit of time admiring the unspectacular view when Sherlock took him by the arm all of a sudden. John's heart beat faster, first because of the shock and then because of... well.  
  
They were walking side by side, but it was pretty clear where they would have to go. The street was full of police cars with some officers standing outside. A great gate was the introduction to a huge, antique house. One of these buildings that draw your attention, especially if you have a weakness for the mysterious and old legends. Which John did not, particularly. But he couldn't quite resist that kind of darker aura surrounding it, as though the rest of the world would simply respect the house's lifestyle and leave it with a touch of danger. Thus, would only support the possibility of old legends about murderers and poltergeists. Also – _oh, no one has lived here in such a long time, how disturbing!_ People love their ghost stories.

The gate was high and black, like prison bars, but in an elegant way. The bars weren't imprisoning anything, they weren't even so much as protecting the house because they appeared to be too worn out to do so. And still, there was a specific grace to it, like that of an old lion with a few grey strands in its mane. The grass was untamed, growing wildly, springing free and independent, yet drained.

The house's wooden frame had a lot less of the lion's grace, as it seemed. The wood rather mouldy, the roof missing some bricks. Windows dark and dirty, because what else would they be, really? People may love their ghost stories, but the whole building had very like stayed empty for ages now, decades maybe.  
  
John was still trying to capture as many details as he could, half-consciously estimating how much older the house (let's call it mansion, shall we?) in front of him could be, and how many wounds of its were wounds from war, like his own. "I didn't know such houses existed in the middle of London."  
  
Sherlock seemed to do sort of the same he was doing, but in the professional detective way. "Maybe that's why they still exist."  
  
John tried not to take that personally, because he knew how Sherlock had meant it, and the more he thought about it, the more he had to admit that it was actually a pretty clever response. But then again, Sherlock's responses were barely anything but. They weren't constructed to be anything else.

"Ah, Lestrade."

Sherlock sounded honestly delighted to see him, and he made his way to the Detective Inspector in a few, long strides, hands behind his back. John hadn't even noticed all the other people around them, too lost in thought had he been, thinking about how this piece of wooden architecture could be a metaphor for his own life … He started feeling a bit pathetic now.

"Good to see you again, Sherlock. John," he nodded at him as he walked up behind Sherlock, _always behind him_ , Lestrade thought. "How are you to doing? How is the..."

He was gesturing vaguely, drawing circles around the area where he believed his own heart to be. It felt about as awkward as it looked for all three of them.

John tried to look away subtly. During the turmoil he had forgotten his anger against the man for being the reason Sherlock had dragged them out here. He still felt a cold breeze of responsibility for what had happened to Sherlock. A responsibility which yes, often resulted in pure guilt. Although it was hardly even his fault, the feeling around his heart didn't know logic. He had always had a very loyal heart. While he was looking anywhere but at them, he forgot that Lestrade's first question was actually for him, as well. He unconsciously knew, though, that Sherlock would answer for them both.

He did. "You should know me to be indestructible. Also, John is taking a lot of care to insure that I can continue being just that. We are _fine_ , Lestrade, just fine, but thank you for going to the trouble of indulging the social norm known as small talk. If we're finished satisfying unnecessary expectations then, I believe you have a body to show us."

John abruptly looked up to him again, as soon as Sherlock had appreciated him in front of Lestrade. Not that it would be particularly new to him, or utterly out of character. It was fact that Sherlock, although having put on his mask of Cool and Mysterious Genius, didn't stop being like that. Didn't stop being so much softer, so much kinder (in a very Sherlockian way) than he had been before he had... left. Plus, he was doing the _we._ John didn't think he knew he was doing it, but he was definitely doing it. _We are fine._

Despite all the things above, Sherlock was letting out much of his crime scene self, and seemed to make up for all the weeks he had not been able to do leg work with some extra arrogance. This trip promised to be either greatly entertaining or endlessly annoying. Though, John was more than glad to have a change of scenery again, even if that scenery consisted of dead people. He was probably not a good person. (And he shouldn't think that as a doctor, either.)

Lestrade was caught a bit off guard. Not having worked with Sherlock Holmes for a while apparently did this to you. His professionalism was gained again pretty quickly as he reminded himself of what lay behind the walls of this house, no thirty metres away from them.

"Well, there is not precisely _one_ body. But as I said on the phone already, you better see for yourself. I couldn't possibly describe that to you, and by God, I wouldn't want to."

 

They followed the Detective Inspector, and John could feel Sherlock getting excited next to him. He himself, however, could only feel the brief note of uneasiness about the whole matter. Having Sherlock on a case again when his wounds hadn't healed enough yet … And now this case turned out to be something bigger? No, he didn't like it. But there was no chance of turning back. He could only trust his instincts and look out for Sherlock like a soldier, keep an eye on him like a doctor. He felt so much more like the army-doctor he had used to be than he had in all of the last two years. And he was loving it.

Inside the building was a quiet dominating that automatically forced you to slow down. Even Sherlock had to have noticed it, and he narrowed his eyes. It was dark, more so before their eyes could get used to it, and if the curtains weren't drawn already, the mud covered windows surely would not have helped. It smelled like it was uninhabited for ages, floorboards and furniture were covered in dust and untouched. Like a landscape after a snowstorm, acceptable in the abstract, but no one dared touching. _And I thought 221B was dusty,_ John thought to add a bit of humour to the situation, but mostly for the sake of his own nerves.

He had been to countless crime scenes with Sherlock. This should not distress him so much.

Some forensics in blue coveralls were going in and out of the room, professionally ignoring them and doing their job. Most of them were occupied somewhere on the first floor of the house, which made it pretty clear where they would have to go. John was intuitively searching for Anderson before he reminded himself that he wasn't working for the police anymore. It was sort of tragic to think about how Sherlock's faked death had pushed him over the edge a bit, and probably completely changed his life, but then again he had not been exactly innocent. So John simply couldn't feel that empathic.

"It's on the next floor," Lestrade said, about to lead the way. He was still looking a little uneasy. If even he was convinced that the sight of this particular murder could shook Sherlock Holmes, then maybe the bad feeling in John's gut wasn't completely unfounded.

"Of course it is," said Sherlock, not one step behind him as they went up the stairs. "Bedroom?"

"Lucky guess," Lestrade replied, still deciding if he should be impressed or used to it by now.

"I never guess."

"Yeah, you do," John mumbled, and the words were out of his mouth before he even realised he said them out loud, smiling.

Sherlock turned around to look at him, also surprised, but he smiled back at him. There was something very affectionate about the way he looked at him, and John didn't know if it was for the fact that Sherlock allowed himself to be so open about his feelings around him now, or the pure warmth in the gaze itself that made him feel like a pair of butterflies invaded his stomach. (The good way of invading, probably.)

But as soon as they reached the room upstairs his stomach turned as if all of the butterflies had suddenly died and grown heavy in their departure from existence. The whole atmosphere around them turned, and John began to understand why Lestrade had wanted them to see the victims for themselves.

 

***

 

The smell was the strongest. The first impression would definitely feature that strong, false smell. It didn't seem real, like a mystification of sorts. In every other part of the house there had been a much softer taste in the air, like old furniture and dust, like twenty years of absence and wood. It was passive, barely noticeable if one wasn't paying attention. Sherlock had been, of course, but declared it as unimportant. But now it was probably important to at least keep that passivity in mind, because once they had entered this particular room, it hit him.

 _Sea_.

It smelled so much like the sea that it almost fooled his mind for a second, thinking he had opened the door and stepped on wet sand and foam.

 _Salt_.

Sherlock tried to concentrate in those first seconds of gathering the most detailed description of a first impression possible. There was salt water, wet sand indeed, and fish in the air. _Fish, what kind of fish? Was it a specific kind of-_ He stopped himself, about to tear his hair, _what an idiotic question,_ when he stopped once more and opened his eyes, not even knowing when he had closed them, as he heard John's voice next to him.

"Jesus," John whispered, and he had to be upset, because he only used blasphemy when he was upset or felt particularly emotional about a matter.

When Sherlock finally managed to tore away his gaze from him to look around instead, he understood.

The room was illuminated through the window to the right, which was framed by old, dusty, sheer curtains. It set the place up in a cold shade of light, all black, white and gunmetal blue. The walls were dirty, and the floorboards bleached, covered in a thin layer of yellow sand, sea weed and what looked like dried white crest.

It looked so odd and unreal, and the room was empty except for a king-size bed and the two bodies lying on top.

A man and a woman, man on the right, woman on the left from Sherlock's point of view. Their heads both turned away from each other, and they looked so anonymously like strangers but at the same time like a sleeping couple, the contrast was more confusing than the questions building up in his mind. He tried to answer some of them as soon as he could.

They were both damaged in completely different ways. And naked, exposed.

His dark raven hair fell over his forehead, hiding his eyes. He was tanned, legs over each other and drawn to his chest. He lacked nothing but one little detail. Something that caused his body to be covered in blood, that had turned the bedsheets soaking red, so much blood loss that it had dripped on the floor beneath, creating a dark red puddle. There was a large hole in his chest, and his rib cage had been ripped open. A hole where his heart was supposed to be. _Someone stole it_. But wait, it wasn't gone. It was still laying there. Innocently. Next to him, between the bed and the window, on the floor. A heart, covered in red wine (obviously not red wine), looking so well arranged that its inscription could've been _Dinner is served!_

Her hair was strawberry blonde and long. Her position tried to equal his, but looked much more foetal, her knees close to her ribs. Her skin appeared to have dried out, probably due to the salt water. She was still wet. There was seaweed and foam all over her naked body, her legs, her breasts. She held a knife in her hand.

It took him a second or two more to realise that her head had been cut open, very neatly, and that her brain had been taken out. This, too, was to be found next to her on the floor, as if to shame them both for owning such nonsensical organs.

Sherlock had to take a moment. The smell suddenly intensified, and now it was blood, blood everywhere, that filled his nostrils, like an animal dead for some time, and it made him so sick. He felt like he was going to vomit, not because his body couldn't take it but because he didn't understand, why _the brain_ ,why _the heart, why, why were they in synch, why the differences?_

It was too much for a moment, and he actually gasped as Lestrade put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him back out of the depths of his mind. Back to reality. Back to John, who was currently the only one to look truthfully worried, whereas everyone else in the room just frowned at him.

Anyone else, meaning one bloody newbie of the forensic team, he could be ignored, but who fortunately left the room seconds later.

"You alright?" Lestrade asked, and Sherlock shook his hand away.

"Fine," he pressed out before he planned to ignore him as well from now on, so he wouldn't have to feel even more humiliated.

_What was happening to him?_

He tried to turn off the rest of the world and imagined to be alone in this room, coming closer to the bed, carefully stepping over the brain on the floor. He would get to that later.

 _She_. She was important, she was different. He was just the supplement.

Sherlock knelt down next to her, careful not to kneel on any of the seaweed. As dreadful as it was, there was no need to ruin his trousers yet.

First, he tried to look at her as a whole, and what immediately struck his eye was her posture. Foetal, yes, but there was no way her legs would have stayed that tightly pressed together before the rigor mortis set in, and even then … He cautiously tried to press a gloved finger between the space where her legs laid on top of each other, but as he ran it down all the way to her feet, his theory got confirmed. There wasn't even any space in between, the skin would barely move, it was as if they were glued together to one big leg. And this was what they were supposed to illustrate.

That almost explained it all. The rest was just routine.

 _Face: relaxed, rather peaceful. Eyes: closed – pupils: constricted due to_ rigor mortis _. Lips: dry, split, salty. Forehead: very neatly, professionally cut open – circular saw? – no signs of blood loss here, so done somewhere else, also after death. Hair: still wet – why is it still wet? Left hand: holding a bloody knife – same blood as on the heart? – strong grip due to_ rigor mortis _._

"She's a mermaid," Sherlock whispered under his breath.

Lestrade perked up his ears at that. "What?"

He furrowed his brows so high that his forehead got wrinkles, and he couldn't hold back the beginning of a dumbfounded laugh (and only partly due to the fact that he never would have imagined Sherlock saying _mermaid_ ). "Did you just say mermaid?"

Sherlock rose up from the ground and rolled his eyes with his back to him, going over to concentrate on John's presence right behind him. John, that brilliant man, attempted to follow his train of thoughts in an instant, knowing he was _never_ wrong.

"Mermaid?" He asked, and the contrast to how Lestrade phrased it was outrageous, "Like in the _Little Mermaid_?"

Sherlock tried to hear him over the loud engine of his racing thoughts, he really tried to hear what he was saying, but he needed a moment more to grasp it. When it finally occured to him, his first instinct was to grab John's face with both hands, spin them around and kiss him. Of course he didn't.

"Yes … Yes, yes, John! Exactly! Ohhh, that's clever …"

He could breathe again. These days, he got worried pretty easily about how John's presence, especially since he had come back ( _home_ ), might affect his work because John had taken up so much space, shoving the other few things he had still left, apart from him, further and further away. It was cruelty, taking up so much space in his once so cleverly organised mind and not knowing what to do with it then. Just because he could. Of course he knew, John didn't do it on purpose, and neither of them had chosen this. It just sort of happened.

"You think so?"

 _Think what?_ Sherlock had already gone on another train of thoughts, and getting off it so fast could be truly dangerous.

"Yes, of course it is, it's brilliant," he said in passing, his mind already spinning its new webs again, with him unable to stand still in the room, walking, _dancing,_ and carefully avoiding to step onto the human brain still laying next to the bed.

Only later on did he realise that what John had actually been asking was _You think I'm clever?_ and he had never even considered John would have doubts on that. Why would he, was he an idiot?

So the second he became aware of this matter, he immediately stopped every movement and turned around to find the doctor standing right behind him, and he looked at him perplexed. "Just like you," and it came out as almost nothing more than just a breath, but Lestrade could hear it anyway, dropping his gaze to the ground as if he wasn't supposed to be the invader in their personal whatever-this-was.

John blinked a few times, and they were still staring at each other, so he couldn't help but remember their first night and Sherlock had looked down at him in exactly the same way that sent butterflies through his stomach. He tried to hold back a grin, more or less vainly. "That's not what people normally say."

When Sherlock noticed what he did there, his expression made a complete turn as if he was having the greatest epiphany, and his mouth lost itself in a smile. With teeth.

John's face broke as well, and it felt so strange smiling like that again, because he couldn't quite remember the last time that he had done it like this, that something had made him feel like this, but his face could never unlearn to smile like that. It was like greeting an old friend. Warm. Trusted. Greeting an old friend who he hadn't seen in a while, on multiple levels.

_God, why were John's eyes so blue?_

Lestrade's not-so-subtle coughing interrupted their _moment_ and brought the air back into their lungs. "Erm, so mermaids? Can you tell us something about that, maybe?"

Greg couldn't even blame them. Hell, he didn't even want to interrupt this, they had looked so much less miserable than he had seen them in ages. But he had a job to be done, and that meant getting down to business. This was a crime scene after all, they couldn't just … flirt. Obviously he would never tell them not to, though. It would only lead to very unpleasant, awkward and hurtful situations for all three of them.

"I can," Sherlock said with his mask adjusted. Of course he could.

He walked around in the room some more, algae sticking to one of his shoes by now, hands behind his back. He was still in the middle of a thinking process, just talking out loud as he went. "That's what she's supposed to be, that's what this – this _scenery –_ is supposed to portray. It's a story, it's a disgusting way of romanticising, it's an interpretation and it's oh- oh! it's so well planned."

Sherlock admiring a murderer's work shouldn't be lovely. But it was, to John. Sherlock's way of expressing this admiration shouldn't sound so good. But oh God, it did. It just did, he wasn't even sorry anymore. He could only try to concentrate on his words, rather than on his voice, but his head was still a bit fuzzy after having been called _brilliant_ by the genius himself.

"This – _This_ right here – is the perverted, alternative ending of the fate of the Little Mermaid. And here she is, look at her – her hair, her hands, her legs. Glued together in the attempt to make her regain her tail again."

"Regain her tail?" Lestrade did not actually want to question anything Sherlock said, but everything just sounded pretty absurd. "I'm sorry Sherlock, but that sounds all very abstract, even for you. Not that I don't want to believe you. But I will need some more facts … Hit me with what you've got."

Sherlock shot a glance at John who looked like he had just waited for his instructions, nodding at him in the way that said _What do I do?_

"John, your opinion? How, when, where?"

John immediately walked past him to do his job, kneeling where Sherlock had just knelt, checking her eyes, her hands, looking more professional than Sherlock had ever seen him at a crime scene. He wondered why that was.

While John was investigating, Sherlock went over the data again, quickly surpressing two other inappropriate thoughts, one more so than the other. _What an interesting turn of events, my clever John inspecting a dead body shouldn't be pleasing_ and then something else about John on his knees. But he suppressed them for good this time.

He went to the other side of the bed, where the male victim was lying, and checked his eyes and body temperature. Lestrade waited for him to start talking again, and he did not have to wait long.

"So the question is _who_ is she? Do the victims know each other? Who are they? Because they definitely didn't die together. John?"

John looked up for a second, then spoke while examining her skin again. "Dead for at least six hours, I'd say. She's not completely stiff yet. Also not completely cold. Mostly warmer than room temperature."

Sherlock crouched at the other side of the bed opposite John, supplementing his statements with what he had observed himself. "All of this indicates drowning. The state of Rigor can be delayed when the body is exposed to cold temperatures. Her skin is dry from salt water, but someone must've made the effort of keeping her wet to create an illusion."

"Keep her wet? Is someone still in the house?" John asked, looking at Lestrade in particular.

"Impossible, we checked the whole building."

Sherlock cocked him a brow, because the New Scotland Yard definition of _checking_ had the tendency to not match with his general understanding of this term. He'd rather do it all by himself, but they he had to make compromises, both with the police and himself, to accept that he was not able to split himself in thousand halves.

"There are no signs of violence," John continued his examination, "and her cornea looks slightly damaged. Could be from salt water and from the cold, both supporting the drowning theory."

"Yes. It also proves that they couldn't have died together," Sherlock continued, notifying how well they simply complemented each other. How beautifully they worked together again.

"Drowning is always a bit difficult to prove, though," Lestrade dared to interrupt, somehow wanting to remind them of his presence in the room. Why did he even bother?

"The design of this room is also a pretty obvious indicator, don't you think?" Sherlock started snapping, but he stopped when John called his name and accidentally claimed all of his attention.

"Sherlock? I think you should have a look at this."

Both Lestrade and he, went over to see what John had found.

The hand that didn't hold the knife, and had been underneath the pillow, was now held by John, palm upwards. He knitted his brows and briefly considered smelling on the hand, but they all knew it already. Burned flesh. "It's like they brandmarked her? No way that's older than a day."  
  
"Black spot," Sherlock mumbled, close to John's ear. Then he quickly jumped up, holding his fingers to his temple, pressing his eyes close.  
  
"There's more than one story then."  
  
"What story?" Lestrade whispered, this time meaning to let Sherlock finish with whatever he was calculated. It could only be of major importance.  
  
Sherlock's eyes snapped open again, and he was on his knees in an instant, focussed on the bleeding heart on the floor this time. "There's something wrong about this."  
  
Being on his hands and knees, his head was on eyelevel with the organ, and he stared it down and sniffed it. "It's not blood ..." (Not so obvious then, is it?)  
  
"Sorry?" Lestrade asked, feeling a bit like the third wheel for a while now. By now, he had been able to make a point of why Sherlock should have permission to investigate a murder when no one else could make anything of it, and to give him more time in doing so, but he still knew everyone else he worked with was sceptical and very impatient when it came to enduring the consulting detective. Most would take it as a personal insult, forgetting what crime solving was actually about: justice. (To be fair, Sherlock tended to forget that, too, sometimes.)  
  
John was still occupied by the black brandmark of the woman's hand, paying little attention to what Sherlock was doing. When he finally shot him a quick glance, he did a double take. First, because him bending down on the floor as far as he could did struck him as a bit (note-worthy?) suspicious. For more than one good reason.

He slowly turned into a standing position, and realised shockingly what Sherlock was about to do. "Sherlock, don't-"

But it was too late.  
  
Sherlock had stuck out his tongue and licked that damn thing.  
  
Seconds later, a feeling of dizziness rushed through his head, numbing his limbs and it got stronger each time his heart pumped blood through his veins.  
  
_No, definitely not blood_ , he thought, uncomfortably slow, _because blood isn't poisonous._  
  
"John," he barely so much as breathed out, eyes falling shut, and the ground beneath his feet shifted more and more. He gave in, his legs and arms gave in and the last thing he remembered was lying on his back while the whole room revolved faster and faster and, somewhere far off in the distance, the voice of an angel called out his name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Muse - Time Is Running Out](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrujXrB1_aE)
> 
>  
> 
> _I think I'm drowning_  
>  _Asphyxiated_  
>  _I wanna break this spell_  
>  _That you've created_
> 
>  
> 
> _You're something beautiful_  
>  _A contradiction_  
>  _I wanna play the game_  
>  _I want the friction_
> 
>  
> 
>   _You will be the death of me_  
>  _You will be the death of me_


	6. Words Unspoken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The distress and anger around his heart must have been sensible through his body, for Sherlock let out a soft whimper. Instantly, John told himself to calm down again, take soothing breaths through his nose. But breathing couldn't soothe away his worries. It was not just their game anymore. There would always be new players now, dangerous players, more of them, and John would lose him, again and again and again. How often could he lose him before it would kill them both?

When Sherlock went to the ground, John experienced a moment of full-blown stagnation, knocking him out of every thought and intention he'd been on the verge of acting on. Everything was happening in slowmotion, and there was a brief second in which he realised that Greg instinctively turned his head to look at him before looking after Sherlock, but only in retrospect could he acknowledge his hesitation. It was supposed to be an unspoken question of what he should do, because John would know, and John would allow, and John was his doctor after all. (And so much more.)

Greg also, and John did not notice it in this moment either, called out Sherlock's name, just like he did. John was more or less falling to his knees beside the unconscious detective, Lestrade sort of awkwardly stretching out his hand to reach for him, not daring to make another move just yet.

 _Sherlock._ John could hear the echo of both their voices in his head only multiple seconds later, but then again and again, Greg's voice fading out more and more with each new repetition, until all he could hear was his own desperate call for Sherlock in the dome of his head, and how he jumped and jumped off St. Bart's rooftop in his mind's eye every time he dared to blink.

When Greg landed by his side, on the other side of Sherlock's dead-like body, the sound reminded him of the dull _thump_ with which Sherlock's head had met the floorboards, also repeating it without him being able to stop it, replacing it with a noise that sounded like a crack. The kind of noise he always imagined must have been heard when Sherlock's head had hit the pavement. _Oh God. Oh God. The blood, the blood, so much blood._

 _But it hadn't_ , John had to calm himself, _because Sherlock never died on the asphalt and he's not going to now. Not as long as I am here, I am with him._ He could not let him down again. Ever.

Still, he saw him now. The images he always saw, still within his darkest nightmares. Sherlock lying there. Motionless. Sherlock with blood all over his face, Sherlock with a bullet wound. All of this had actually happened. Sherlock had already died on him twice. John couldn't, he couldn't, he _couldn't_ take it again.

He checked his temperature, his eyes, if he was still breathing. He was, oh _thank God,_ he was. Only then, John remembered that the world around him and Sherlock's shattering signs of life somehow existed, and that he was being stared at. By very concerned brown eyes, circled by wrinkles which told long stories of exhaustion.

A hot, sickening anger suddenly began to grow inside of him, rising up to the surface, and it must have been so visible in his cold blue eyes and the clench of his jaw that he just wanted to rip this place apart right now, for everything it had and hadn't done to Sherlock Holmes.

"Greg," he began in the tone he used when his face suggested calm but his body sent an entirely different message. He was angry.

Later he would feel sorry for projecting all of his feelings onto Lestrade, but right now all he could see was hot boiling anger and he needed someone, _anyone_ , to use it against. "I can't believe you let him do this!"

"John?" Greg looked helpless now, torn between the motionless body of Sherlock that he had never wanted to see like this again, and being on the receiving end of John's guilt-trip without knowing if he should defend himself or just bear it as it was.

"John, I have nothing to do with this!"

"I know," he wanted to shout, but it came out much quieter, much more desperate, because this was what he felt like. Desperate, desperate for anything that would show him Sherlock was still alright somehow. He couldn't stop seeing him, seeing him dead in front of him again and again.

He saw him on the floor of Magnussen's apartment, the white linen slowing being stained purple, just around his heart. Instinctively he wanted to check on the invisible wound then, to see if he had hurt himself, to see if he had missed something, because he just couldn't lose him again. He couldn't! Not to anyone, anything. And he was so sick of seeing him lying unconsciously on the ground, laid out in front of him, he was sick of it. He needed him breathing, he needed him. He was still checking. For pulse, breath, bruises.

John was bending down as much as he could then, placing his hands underneath Sherlock's shoulder blades and thighs, groaned as he made his first attempt of standing up. Lestrade just watched him, _them,_ with a look of compassion in his round pair of eyes, but accepted that John wouldn't let him touch him now. They knew each other well enough. John needed to do this on his own, he needed to get Sherlock out of this on his own for once. It was, apart from Sherlock's health, the most important thing in the world right now. And seeing as John was a doctor and his friend, he believed that he knew what he was doing. If the soldier thought he could fight this battle on his own, no one should get in his way.

"We're going home," John announced, both arms full of a sleeping detective, lungs a bit too tight, but otherwise still resentful. "Hope we could help you with your case, _Inspector_."

When he was stepping out of the room, everything was silent. Everything around them was muted, and John Watson wore a look on his face that dared anyone to speak up only if they wanted to never be able to do so again. He left the room with reality blurring around him. Past the door, down the stairs, slowly. He was under a glass dome. No one could touch him. Everyone just stared. The looks on their faces. The words they spoke. Everything went through him. He became unreachable.

He was under a glass dome underwater, every sound from the outside just a dull noise that developed into a high-pitched ache in his ears. It got too much. It hurt. But John fought against the shaking, against the noises. Sherlock in his arms was his highest priority now.

This time he didn't see the darkness, he didn't see the dust. Didn't smell the odour of old furniture and strangeness. No more old wood, no more contrast to the blue clothes of forensics. He could wildly remember someone having the decency to at least open the front door for him, and then the outside world pelted down on him. Colours too bright, too untidy, too blinding. Grey clouds looking white and painful to the eye. Absently, he noted how someone was coming behind them, but he had distanced himself from the dark house long since. Just as the tinnitus was slowly fading, the sounds of nature, police cars and people around him started to blend in again, and he dared to look down at the poor creature in his arms.

Sherlock would _hate_ for John to see him like this. Although, he didn't look too vulnerable as much as he just looked … exhausted. And now he was finally able to rest. His face always went so soft when he was sleeping. His skin so pale in the grey light, his throat exposed with his head laying back. Eyes closed, mouth slightly open. John couldn't help but be reminded of another day that had ended with him carrying Sherlock home like this.

 _Irene Adler_. She had poisoned him, somehow, and John had not been there in time to stop her. Even when he was in the same room he was incapable of being there in time, as today's events had proven. What kind of a doctor was he even? What kind of friend?

John carried on to hold him like this, to get him away from this place. Carrying Sherlock Holmes like a princess, silently, protectively, his face so hard, so strong. He had to be strong now. In fact, his body had to have gotten stronger over the years, since Sherlock had definitely gained weight. Sherlock had become far more muscular. In John's head, he was still so thin, underweight, leaner. But now, he could feel his strength where he was holding him around his thighs, his shoulders.

_What the hell happened in these two years you've been away?_

He knew Greg was coming after them, but he did not stop.

"John!" he heard him shouting, and worry had taken over his voice.

"Take care," he said, brown eyes looking after them.

 _Yes, of course_ , he wanted to cry back. _Of course, this time I'm gonna do it right, I will always take care of him._

When he was standing between the police cars, between the ogling bystanders on the pavement, he had to bite back a loud groan of frustration.

"Would some of you morons have the grace to call a bloody cab and stop staring like useless idiots?!"

Somehow, that did the trick.

 

***

 

The city was busy as always. No excuses, even with rain pouring like this. The rain had started right after he had gotten Sherlock into the cab. The driver had eyed them weirdly, but then must've realised that this was serious. Maybe it had even started to rain before that, but John simply hadn't noticed. Not that it mattered now.

He was looking out of the window, and all he could see were bleary buildings passing by and, when he took a closer look at the glass of the window, dozens and hundreds of rain drops chasing each other. It didn't make a difference where he was looking. London was just as busy, just as fast, people chasing and chasing and losing each other within the capital day in, day out. And Sherlock was to be found in the middle of it all.

John startled at first as Sherlock's head was suddenly leaning against his shoulder. He was still caught within the thick walls of forced slumber, and apparently his body had decided that his head was too heavy to hold up now. It calmed John's nerves a little. To feel him still being there, feel him breathing still. As if it really would be just sleep that had washed over him. Those moments were rare, very rare. Sherlock claimed to never sleep on a case, and most times he was holding onto this claim. But sometimes, or after they had solved a case and were on their way back home, he would catch a glimpse of this. Sherlock having falling asleep in a cab, despite his every attempt to fight against the exhaustion. The temptation to let his fingers caress those dark curls then was always a strong one. But John had trained himself to resist it early enough.

Still, despite all the fondness and warm-heartedness he was feeling right now, he simply had to think of the dark sides of their lives again. Shadows were after them constantly, haunting them when they were awake and even in their dreams. It was such a dangerous life they were living together, and he just always had to be scared. Sometimes he could not help but think that something out there wanted them apart. Well, it had worked often enough. The lingering threat of Moriarty rushed through his mind like a curse and, always along with it, the stinging memory of how far apart that had gotten them. How long they both had burned, how long he had waited and waited for the pain to ease, but the moment had just never come. Instead, Mary Morstan had come. And she had almost managed to take Sherlock away from him all over again.

The distress and anger around his heart must have been sensible through his body, for Sherlock let out a soft whimper. Instantly, John told himself to calm down again, take soothing breaths through his nose. But breathing couldn't soothe away his worries. It was not just their game anymore. There would always be new players now, dangerous players, more of them, and John would lose him, again and again and again. How often could he lose him before it would kill them both?

Maniacs, lunatics, the work. It had always been The Work for Sherlock. He tried to tell himself that he wasn't feeling the small twinge of jealousy that he was clearly feeling at this. He himself loved it, too. Solving crimes with him. Feeling the blood pumping through his veins. But he would never be equal to Sherlock, and that was what hurt. He would always be Robin, running behind him, and in the end, he could not even save him when it really mattered. He was a doctor and a soldier, he shot targets and treated wounds, but he failed and failed when it came to the one who mattered the most. He was useless in the long-term.

John really didn't want to see himself as a pawn, easily replaceable, easily sacrificed. He couldn't integrate himself in this game of chess at all. The symbolism of chess … He tried not to let himself think about this, but when it came to symbolism, that of the events of today inevitably came to mind. Sherlock on his knees, knocked out by a bleeding heart on the ground.

 

On the doorstep of 221B John struggled to find the keys in the pockets of his jacket.

"Come on, come on," he hissed. The weight of Sherlock against his back was, quite literally, pressing him to open the door as fast as possible. The last thing he wanted was for Sherlock , who was still half in trance, to slip and hit his head on the pavement. (Another unpleasant flashback followed this fear.)

After he had finally found his keys, he allowed himself to let other thoughts through that could eventually lessen his distress a little. Unfortunately, the only other thought that came to mind was the awareness of Sherlock's whole body pressed against him. He was still so warm, still so alive, although drugged with sleep (and probably something far more dangerous). He could feel him rubbing his cheek against the back of his neck and the sensation made his hairs stand on end.

"Sherlock," he breathed out after managing to get the front door unlocked and open it, trying to get him more awake somehow. Because now came the difficult part of this whole challenge: getting him up their flat without breaking all of their bones.

He took a few deep breaths and then tried to wrap his arm around Sherlock's shoulders to steady him. Walking with him was nearly impossible. They almost stumbled over each other's feet and the trip upstairs felt like climbing up a mountain. It took long minutes, a lot of strength, patience and by the time they had made it up the last of the seventeen stairs, they were both standing wobbly, but they were still standing on both their feet.

John brought Sherlock directly to the sofa onto which he almost collapsed as soon as the solid support of John's strong arms around him was gone. But he simply needed a moment to catch his breath again, get his hard-working lungs under control and calm his nerves a little. It was a noise Sherlock made, quiet, his voice too breathy, that got him back into reality again. He sat down next to him on the sofa, careful not to startle him, and strained his ears.

"What was that?" he asked in a whisper.

Sherlock was still mumbling, but it was impossible to understand what he was saying, even when it was all he focused on. Sherlock let his head fall onto John's shoulder, just like he had done in the cab. John found himself wondering if it was really simply out of a convenience for his body to let his head rest somewhere, or if there was more to it. If it was the closeness he craved, the physical contact he wanted without consciously being aware of it. Whatever the reason, John once again had to struggle with holding himself back from stroking his hair.

They were sitting like this for a few minutes. John wouldn't dare to touch, but it was still nice. Being here with him. Just the two of them, in this flat, on this couch, leaning against each other. As much as he didn't dare to touch, he didn't dare to move either. Didn't dare to destroy this. It was one of these rare moments he treasured so much. Slowly now, softly now, he raised his arm to place it on the back of the sofa. And ever so slowly, he carefully let his fingers play with the soft nape curl at the back of Sherlock's head. The body next to him let out a low sigh at this. John smiled. It was a sort of reassurance, even if it was just Sherlock's body talking here, his transport. He still had no idea what the genius inside of it would say to this.

"It was nice to hear you play your violin again." He spoke lowly, careful not to disturb the peace, simply letting it linger between them within the silence.

There it was. A mumble again, a low one. John realised that it was supposed to be his name. The fingers in his hair stilled and he felt the pounding of his heart growing stronger. Did he dream of him? Or did his voice manage to come through?

There were long moments of silence again, and slowly but surely the sun would go down and both of them would sit in the dark very soon. The days were getting ever shorter, the closer winter came, and the flat was bathed in ever darker growing gloominess.

Finally, John gently unravelled himself from Sherlock's body. "You should probably go to-" he started, but stopped as his friend shifted to the side and begun to rub his cheek against the back of the couch. John couldn't hold back a fond chuckle at this. "...bed."

He knelt down now, and tried to get Sherlock to listen to him when, all of a sudden, he reached out for John, clearly still half asleep, and interlaced their finger with each other. John could do nothing but stare at they intertwined hands, his heart beating fast and loudly, echoing within the walls of his own head. After several minutes passed like this, he allowed himself to press one, firm kiss to the back of Sherlock's beautiful hand and slowly let go of him.

He stumbled through the darkness of their flat, almost running against the couch table in the search for his armchair. There, after managing to lit a fire in the chimney, he retreated the blanket from the back of the chair and went back to Sherlock on the sofa. He brought a hand to his shoulder and got him to lie down eventually, then covered his body with the blanket. At last, he checked his temperature by putting a hand to his forehead.

 _No fever_ , he noted. _At least something._

He walked over to the bookshelf and took out a book Sherlock would certainly have complained about if awake. But he must have owned it a long time before John had ever set a foot in this flat for the first time. The book was full of dog ears, suggesting someone read it far more than once, and over the years he had seen it in many different places in the shelf. He settled down into his armchair opened the first page. He didn't really know what the book was about, only knew it was fiction and something about the sea. But he wanted to give his friend something that would lull him into a warm sleep, and at the same time keep his own mind off all the horrors he couldn't stop thinking about.

While he was reading out loud and filled the flat with the smooth raising and lowering of his own voice, sometimes he caught himself on the verge of not listening to it anymore. There were still so many questions he could not find an answer to. He knew he had to wait. Had to be patient. Even if these questions gnawed on the back of his head.

_How did Sherlock know so much about the story of the Little Mermaid?_

Somehow, he managed to let his mind rest a little. Lose himself within the fictional world of the book he was reading aloud. Until he himself could barely keep his eyes open before he drifted into a blank, dreamless sleep.

 

***

 

It smelled like salt and sounded like foam as he took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a second. The world managed to stand still, he slowly exhaled and it revolved again. His piercing gaze got softer and he paused completely, watching while waves and waves relived around him. The brown curls danced playfully as wet air surrounded him, and he looked, just _looked,_ at the dark blue, vibrating monster named ocean. He watched it rising and falling, little waves that reflected the dim sunlight, white stars sparkling all over it. He looked at the small line separating water and sky, the almost transparent part between aquamarine and royal blue, and it could have been the end of the world. He appreciated, and yes, he admired. It was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

He acknowledged the deep blue monster one last time (because monstrous was the sea's true nature, just like all the dangerous gifts of planet earth, like the sun). By the time he turned his head and looked around again, everything sped up in a sudden hurry that could have been frightening. But Sherlock adjusted to it rather quickly, after he ended the short mental break he had allowed himself, and finally he got up from the stairs he was sitting on. Getting under way, his mahogany boots clattered quietly on the wooden ground. He started to observe all the people who walked around and past him to refresh his memory, until suddenly someone blocked his way.

"A course, Captain?"

Sherlock smiled to himself. Nothing ever changed down here. What a wonderful circumstance. „You remember the treasure I told you about, Lestrade?“

"Well, not really. Since you never tell me anything and are not even interested in money-" The man still waited for an answer, but as he knew about Sherlock's habits, he wasn't going to wait for long. He also couldn't escape the feeling that he was trying to answer a rhetorical question. But he was having a Sherlock Holmes nearby, so this attempts would end very soon. Despite knowing that answering such a question was therefore quite unnecessary in itself, he often could not stop himself.  
  
"The world's greatest treasure..." A little smile touched Sherlock's face before it vanished completely. It was clear that he was mostly talking to himself, but as interrupting Lestrade meant Sherlock had heard enough of his suggestions, which were no real suggestions anyway because he was just babbling out the facts, he would hardly let him in the dark for longer.  
  
"A key!" With this proudly claimed announcement Sherlock turned on his heel, letting a slightly bewildered Lestrade behind.  
  
The grey haired man started to emulate some of his friend's joy and smiled confidently. „Ay. A key!“ But as he repeated it to himself, because Sherlock could not hear him anymore, his smile faded more and more, until he went after his captain with a now very confused expression on his face. "A key?!"  
  
Sherlock stood on the quarter deck, where he was about to grab the helm and navigate his ship. "Yes, a key, Lestrade," he said, a little irritated that people didn't understand him the first time he explained things to them. Was he really that ambiguous or did people just fancy him quoting himself?

"Wasn't I clear enough?" The question was only halfway rhetorical.

"Yes, yes! It was … quite clear, just-," Lestrade tried to find the words that would hopefully bring him some enlightening explanation from Holmes, "-what... what exactly is it that makes this _key_ so much of a treasure again?"

The man with the long coat and the dark curls that were wetted from salt water was shooting him a glance that transferred words along the lines of _You're an idiot_ , before he finally gave up on the game that only he was going to win anyway. The game was called _Letting other people guess what I am implying, because I could deduce what they are thinking right now, and if they can't do the same, they are idiots._ "The key, Mr Lestrade, is obviously not the treasure itself. It is what said item is able to unlock, which is now, naturally, still locked. Means the man who finds the key has the ability of unlocking the locked, and is therefore in possession of the highest treasure ever available."

Lestrade was looking a bit puzzled after this rather confusing and rapidly presented clarification. He was not as stupid as Sherlock sometimes pretended he would be. It was just that his captain seemed to have the urge to make things utterly complicated. Maybe to once again prove that he was clever (as if anyone who knew him longer than thirty seconds couldn't see that for themselves). But Lestrade understood where this was going, and so there remained just one, and probably his most important question.

He could hear him mumbling under his breath, absentmindly and far away, "The man with the key is king, Lestrade," but he couldn't make anything of it. Still, he felt a thrill running through him at his captain's words and promises.

"So what is it then?" Lestrade's eyes were wide and his teeth were showing as he stared at Sherlock in a way that expressed eager. He was his first mate after all, and he dared to claim that he was one of his closest friends, as well. And as such he certainly had a right to know where they were going and what they intended to acquire after arriving.

Sherlock, however, was currently guiding the ship and either not listening or not caring. Water splashed up the wooden walls, flooded the deck, slipped underneath his boots. Humidity thickened the air and saltwater fought it. Sherlock felt purely alive. His long, blackish-brown coat fluttered in the wind, he could feel splashes on his skin and through his thin, very light blue shirt, which revealed a glimpse of his considerable collarbones and the long neck. A thin smile danced around the full pair of lips, his eyes glinting in a bright aquamarine that mirrored the colour that the ocean created around a sandbar of creamy beige. The hat on top of his flying curls stayed solid as a rock, and only the navy blue feather on the hat's left side waved in an excited pace.

"What is _what_?" Sherlock started to lose his patience, and also his interest in this conversation, so his expression hardened and the small line between his brows deepened.

Lestrade felt stuck in an endless circle. Either Sherlock really wanted him to stop asking any questions, or he actually believed that their answers should be obvious to everyone. But he considered it to be sort of a part of his job to try it again anyway.  
  
"The, well, _fantastic_ treasure you just mentioned. Is it something like gold? Or just something to annoy your brother with again?" Lestrade knew what Sherlock thought about the British policy and the system behind it, and he couldn't help but grin at the thought of Sherlock and his brother's childish quarrels. But the truth was, nobody really knew _why_ Sherlock did what he did, and on some days it was also unclear _what_ it was he was doing in the first place.  
  
Before Lestrade could make any more assumptions, Sherlock interrupted him with a snort. "As always, you are asking the wrong questions, Lestrade. There would be no benefit for you knowing more about it at the moment. Quite the contrary, I'd say it would rather confuse your simply constructed mind and you would most certainly bother me with another inquiry. You see, it's not going to lead us anywhere. If you want to feel better informed, please, at least try to ask me something of importance!"  
  
"Well, then," started Lestrade, but stopped himself to rethink his choice of words. _Something of importance!_ He nearly let out a short laughter as he realised that he had already asked the right question.

"So. A course, Captain?"

And Sherlock looked in the distance with a dreamlike shimmer to his eyes. An oblivious and proud expression. He was entirely in control about everything at once, so that the way he was standing on the ship's wet wooden ground and the strength with which he held the helm made him look almost majestical.

"London," announced he, as though he would greet an old friend. "The heart of the nation."

 

***

 

John woke up with a stiff neck and his back aching. _Bloody great,_ he cursed internally, but then remembered that it was, in fact, his own fault and as a doctor he could've easily predicted that. After blinking his eyes open, he noticed that he couldn't simply lift his arms. There was a blanket on top of him, covering his body from his shoulders to his knees. At second glance he realised that it was the blanket from the back of his chair. The blanket he had given to _Sherlock_ the day before. One quick glance towards the couch – of course, he was gone. In this moment he swore to himself that if this twat had gone out without him after having been poisoned he would-

"No need to pull a face, John, I'm right here."

Sherlock's voice came from right behind him out of the kitchen, and a wave of relief rushed over him. Still, the urge to yell at him didn't die away at that.

"What were you thinking?" he snorted instead of a morning greeting.

As he untangled himself from the chequered blanket, he noticed that Sherlock had not put back the book that must have been laying in John's lap – it was in Sherlock's chair now, with John's shoes in front of it on the floor as if trying to protect it. _Sherlock took off my shoes?_ And only now, as he was taking a look at his feet, he realised that he was indeed only wearing socks and that he couldn't remember having taken them off yesterday.

Apparently, Sherlock didn't see any need to answer his question (even though he had certainly heard it), so John decided to get up and join him in the kitchen. Only to be shocked and hurt once more as he saw what he was doing there next to his microscope.

_Sharp silver in blue vein. Needle that broke beautiful milky skin, substance to the bloodstream, cold, paralysing, numbing rush that will kill him, it will kill him, will it? Kill him?_

Again, John saw a Sherlock that had once existed right before his own eyes, but was not his reality anymore. Again, a Sherlock that was half dead, drug den this time. High. _It could kill him._  
  
And how he was sitting there. On the kitchen table, like this wasn't something to be ashamed of at all. Like he could just laugh John in the face and kill himself. All over again.

"Sherlock, just what the fuck do you think you're doing?"

He didn't actually care, he didn't want to think rationally, he could only see the needle in his arm and think of the time he had left him alone, left him by himself. Sherlock had turned to drugs, _that utter idiot_ , and he had lied to John about it. Because once again, he had not been trustworthy enough. No, that didn't hurt at all. Just like the cut of a paper knife tore through an envelope, and John was the envelope to the unwritten letter and the knife was the pain. Was he being dramatic? Perhaps he was. Did he care now? Well, three guesses.

He practically stormed into the kitchen, and Sherlock's calmness about his obvious rage alone was provoking enough.

"You're a doctor, John. What does it look like?"

There was red liquid filling up the syringe in his arm, and long fingers expertly drew the needle out again. He then pressed a piece of what looked like a handkerchief to the wound and fixed it with a plaster.

"You... you're taking blood samples," John stammered, simultaneously relieved and very confused, which only showed on his face and emphasised it. Not a lot for Sherlock to deduce, surely. John had overreacted and they both knew why. Now he felt guilty about it, even though his fears were more than valid.

"I would've asked you to do it, but you were asleep."

John, much more gently now, sat down on the kitchen table opposite him and watched him work. "You know you can wake me up for things like that, right?"

He smiled at him, if maybe just a bit apologetic. He didn't think he had to justify his reaction, but Sherlock still looked so … sad? For only one moment were he had let his mask give in.

"It's also early. I know you can be grumpy in the mornings." Now there was a tiny smile on Sherlock's lips. It made him look years younger, John realised yet again. It was incredible how honest emotions changed his face every time.

"Oh, _I_ am the grumpy one in the mornings now, eh?"

Provided Sherlock actually slept once in a while, he almost never got enough of it, thus was ridiculously easy to irritate. But he wasn't one to judge in this aspect, he supposed. John shot a glance at the windows with half drawn curtains to estimate what time it was. An orange light left its feather-light touch on walls and furniture, and one glimpse of it fell onto Sherlock's pale face. It highlighted the high cheekbones, made his averted eyes shine green like a lake below a blue morning sky, his curls glinting like a halo above his head. He looked exceptionally beautiful in a way that stole the air out of John's lungs, took his breath away for a moment, and he felt dizzy with how much he felt for this man.

"What-" clearing his throat for the lack of voice, "What time is it even?"

"Shortly half past six, I'd say."  
  
Half past six? Alright, maybe there was a good reason not to wake John too early. But in the past the boundaries of decency and politeness had also never bothered Sherlock Holmes. So why now?  
  
"A bit more sleep would've done you some good, too, you know."  
  
They didn't talk about this. Just as they never talked about this sort of stuff. No one mentioned how Sherlock had gotten himself drugged or how John had dragged him home. Neither the calm moments of sitting together on the couch, neither Sherlock saying his name in his sleep, nor John pressing his lips to the back of his hand. Not the fact that he had read him a bedtime story, or the mutual reciprocating of tugging each other up in a blanket. Everything unmentioned. Leaving so many words unspoken.  
  
"Unlikely. I had take the samples as soon as possible, so that the poison could still be found in my bloodstream. But I can't run the tests here, so I will have to go to Bart's."  
  
"You want to go out now?" John asked with worry coming through.  
  
"Yes, what else would I be doing?"  
  
"I don't know, sleep some more, maybe?"  
  
Sherlock looked at him oddly for long seconds. Almost as if he genuinely didn't understand what John was saying. It was the suggestion of sleep, probably. He might not understand why John was still trying to make him care more about his body's needs. Pointless, of course.  
  
The detective opened his mouth to speak, but waited a few seconds. "I mean, I could wait for... a bit, I guess. If you'd rather... _sleep_ some more." There wasn't any criticism in his words. Only honest consideration.  
  
"You... you really want me to come with you to Bart's?"  
  
Sherlock looked nervous now, guilty almost. Or caught in the act, embarrassed. John quickly tried to soothe that crease between his brows with a little smile. "No, that's... fine. I don't mind. Was just... surprised that you'd ask, I guess."  
  
Sherlock cleared his throat now, gaining back some distance to his emotions. "I don't trust myself to walk around without someone on my side to watch out, should anything happen. And who would be more qualified for this job than my live-in doctor?" The tiny smile he gave him at this seemed almost shy, and it was the softest, most honest expression that John had seen in a long time.  
  
Also, was he being serious? Sherlock Holmes, the former lone wolf and self-proclaimed sociopath uttered a thought-through, considered suggestion to assure his own safety? And above all that, he laid all his trust and the task of protecting his life out there and put it in John's hands. How on earth could he have said no to this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Written By Wolves - Elastic Heart](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XmhSGaOH-A)
> 
>   _And I will stay up through the night_  
>  _And let's be clear, won't close my eyes_  
>  _And I know that I can survive_  
>  _I'll walk through fire to save my life_
> 
>   _And I want it, I want my life so bad_  
>  _I'm doing everything I can_  
>  _Then another one bites the dust_  
>  _It's hard to lose a chosen one_


	7. A Rotten Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I'm your doctor and very worried friend here, but I want to let you know how hard it is to not make a comment about karma right now."
> 
> John was so close to him, his hand so warm on his back, which immediately transformed into being oversensitive. He imagined that he could feel his pulse through his fingers, and the smell of him made it harder to take in his words at first. He needed a moment, then managed to croak out a half-hearted snap. "How professional of you."
> 
> John was, generally, not very professional with him. Just how he liked it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Houston, we have a plot.

The atmosphere in the cab on the way to Bart's was different again. Lighter. Which didn't make much sense, considering the only thing that had changed in the time from now to yesterday was that Sherlock could have been killed by poison and had been knocked out to John's feet. It was still the silence that hung in the air between them, but it seemed to be a calmer storm now. It left them both to their own thoughts and worries. And Sherlock had a lot of them. _Worries_. Oh, and how he worried. It was nearly killing him all over again.

When they were in the lab Molly had kindly provided them with, Sherlock was mixing together some chemicals to reconstruct the solution he had been poisoned with, filling some test tubes with different mixtures. He could almost feel it. John's gaze on him was a gentle one. It was full of unmasked interest and naive wonder – an expression Sherlock had only understood how to cherish properly after he had disappeared into the land of the undead. And with that, he had also learned how to miss it. How much it could hurt to miss something so simple at first glance, but so much more complex when you took the time to look deeper. Much like John Watson himself.

He had trouble concentrating. John could at least have pretended to have something better to do than looking at him. Only yesterday he had been desperate for attention, but now, under the weight of those dark blue eyes, he felt like something as simple as a look could already be too much for him to bear. Not to imagine how much damage a touch would cause. No, he wouldn't imagine it. _Oh God, no_ , was the only thing he could think when John came closer and looked over his shoulder, while the smaller part of his brain just whispered _yes please_ over and over, making him mad in the confusion of thoughts and senses. (Not to mention John's smell.)

"So what exactly are you doing?" he asked, his low voice too close to his ear, breath on his neck.

A shiver ran down Sherlock's spine. He tried to hide it. "You want me to explain chemistry to you?"

"Sure. Why not?"

John just seemed so openly interested, so eager for enlightenment that Sherlock trusted him enough to listen. So he explained. He explained what he did and why, what it meant, about the one who had laid the trap and his speculations. About chemical compositions, Karl Landsteiner's medical paper on blood types, methods, results. When he had finished, having gotten a little lost by the joy of elaborating something he cared about and was good at that was not solving cases for once and looked back to John, he was taken aback by what he saw.

John stared at him in utter amazement, blinking, and he couldn't be sure who took whose breath away this time. Sherlock should have cleared his throat before whispering, "What?" but it was too late to take that throaty word back now.

"Have you ever thought about becoming a teacher?"

The question was so sudden and unexpected that Sherlock could only blink at him in a perplexed fashion. "Is that a serious suggestion?"

But in this moment John's mask of naive amazement (A mask? He looked genuinely astonished and lovely and was a bad liar, so maybe not a mask at all) showed cracks as he obviously tried to suppress a giggle.

"John, I thought we had already established that I am an obnoxious smart-arse whenever I open my mouth around an audience," Sherlock didn't fail to notice the bemused head shake of the man next to him, "Also, I imagine teaching could only be frustrating. People usually don't think. Even when the obvious is almost too easy to be explained to them in the first place."

"But … you just took the time to explain something to me that must've been fairly obvious to you."

Sherlock should have known this conversation was predetermined to go in a direction that would leave him without the right words to say. He found himself tapping silent notes on the lab table with his fingertips (something from the ending of Richard Wagner's _Tannhäuser Overtüre_ – maybe a little more dramatic than it was calming), but still murmured, almost under his breath, "You've always been … a whole different story, John."

John gave a tiny smile with pursed lips. As if he was truly flattered by this. "Oh, I'm a story now?" He put his hand not far from where Sherlock's fingers were still tapping on the table, so that his body was tilted to the side. Probably to make it easier for him to talk to Sherlock face to face. "I like that."

"What?" Sherlock turned his head towards him.

"You know. Because you could always read me like an open book."

He almost whispered his reply. "Not always."

John was frowning now and still looked amused. "Oh?"

"I may not always give your highly complex personality all the credit you clearly deserve, but I'm often... losing myself..." ( _At a loss, you wanted to say at a loss for words! But then again, John's eyes are so very blue..._ )  
  
John looked like he had trouble breathing for a moment. He cleared his throat. "You're also, er, pretty amazing. It's why I fell, erm, feel. Never bored. Around you."  
  
Alright, this was dangerous. He had to do something, now, or John would know. He would get his hopes up and say something he should have left unspoken and then John would know. He'd leave. Laugh and leave. Think Sherlock was a selfish arsehole, go back to Mary and Sherlock would be left solving cases alone again. Or none at all anymore. John should go back to Mary, he knew that. After all he had done for John to trust her (trust only gained through his, miraculously still existing, trust in Sherlock), he knew it was only a matter of time.  
  
In his sudden panic he turned away from John so quickly that his arm hit the test tube rack and it fell over. The corks in the tubes were able to save Sherlock's mixed solutions from leaking out, but couldn't save the one tube from falling off the table. There was the loud noise of breaking glass, followed by a quiet _zsssh_ as the liquid bubbled up like foam.  
  
John jerked back in shock, "Jesus!" as the shards jumped up and sparkled in the artificial light of the lab. Sherlock seemed to be frozen for a second, could only stare at the shattered glass, but after a moment his mouth formed the silent shape of epiphany, followed by a not-so-silent, "Oh!"  
  
"Oh?" John asked, still in a bit of a state, taking a few more steps back while every step was still making scrunching sounds under his feet.  
  
"Oh, yes, ohhh!"  
  
John coughed, once, sounding choked, "Sherlock, what-" But Sherlock interrupted.  
  
"Pink!" The outcry brought back memories from _ages_ ago. Sherlock subconsciously ignored the little swell of heart. "Yes, yes, but still too _pink_."  
  
He was, of course, (and now John seemed to have finally caught up with the obvious around him) referring to the spilled liquid on the floor. What had once been rather translucent was now, indeed, _pink_.  
  
"But I still don't see..." John's eyes followed Sherlock around the room, who had now jumped from his seat with another full test tube in his hands. He pulled out the cork, causing a little _pop_ noise, and was careful, almost in a dancing matter, not to step on what had been left from the last tube.  
  
"Wrong. You do see, John, but as always never observe," and was he humming under his breath.  
  
He tilted the test tube until the last drop had landed on the white lab floor, and he was now eagerly waiting for the chemical reaction to happen.  
  
"Sherlock, what the actual fu-"  
  
"-carnation pink?"  
  
Another tube emptied on the floor, slowly changing colour.  
  
"-do you think you're doing, for G-"  
  
"-cotton candy?"  
  
"-sake?!"  
  
Sherlock didn't listen, of course not, and kept mumbling to himself. "No, too light, way too light. Needs to be darker, needs to be red, scarlet."  
  
The door to the lab opened, and a small figure entered the room in a haste.  
  
"Is everything alright, I heard a loud noise and-" Molly sounded slightly out of breath, but sucked in the air around her sharply as she took in the scene before her eyes.  
  
Sherlock, seemingly in his element, oblivious to the world and surrounded by puddles in various shades of pink, dancing around with test tubes in his hands and spilling them on the floor while John was only uselessly standing on the other side of the table, arms crossed and a hand held up before his eyes.  
  
"Sherlock, what's going on here?" she asked loudly, sounding too upset to even force herself to let one of her nervous smiles distract her mouth from saying upset things.  
  
John seemed to be past that state already and had now abandoned the field by being just absolutely done. "Oh. Hey, Molly."  
  
"Hey, John," she didn't even look at him, clenching her hands to fists, "Sherlock, stop it!"  
  
Sherlock could hear them, apparently. Which didn't necessarily make the situation any better. "Molly, I need to know what's in the detergent you clean the floors with."  
  
She walked right up to Sherlock, who was just emptying his last tube before her feet. She didn't care, stepping right into the puddle while it sprinkled and slowly changed colour. "You're going to find out when you're gonna clean them, I suppose!"  
  
"Don't _step_ on it, it's an experiment!" Sherlock squatted down quickly to watch the puddle assume an ever deeper shade of red.  
  
"An experiment in destroying my workplace?" Molly crossed her arms. "I trust you, Sherlock. Trusting two grown men to, you know, not make a complete mess when I leave them alone."  
  
John lifted his finger in protest. "Hey, I have nothing to do with this."  
  
"Couldn't you have stopped him?"  
  
But Sherlock interrupted them by looking up at John with an expression so full of hope, a wide grin making his blue eyes flash up greenly. "I may have been able to reconstruct the solution that poisoned me."  
  
"Poison?" Molly asked, perplexed.  
  
"Yes, Molly, and you're standing on it."  
  
Sherlock was still kneeling on the floor to Molly's feet when John came around the table to take a closer look.  
  
"It's the same colour the heart was covered in, see? It's supposed to look like blood." He was so endlessly excited about his accidental discovery - but the greatest things had been discovered through accidents, hadn't they? - he could feel his flesh tingle under the urge to move, of running around London with John, now that his nose had picked up a scent.  
  
"Take a sample then," John said, a little too unimpressed for his liking, standing above him next to Molly. "Try to find a match with what might've been left of the poison in your own blood. But first, clean up this mess you've made in your ingenuity, would you?"  
  
"Cleaning? No time. I'll run a quick test and then text Lestrade."

Sherlock stood up too fast and was surprised by his own outcry as he squirmed with pain. John was beside him in a second, pressing a hand to his back and one to his shoulder to steady him.

"I'm your doctor and very worried friend here, but I want to let you know how hard it is to not make a comment about karma right now."  
  
John was so close to him, his hand so warm on his back, which immediately transformed to oversensitivity. He imagined that he could feel his pulse through his fingers, and the smell of him made it harder to take in his words at first. He needed a moment, then managed to croak out a half-hearted snap. "How professional of you."

John was, generally, not very professional with him. Just how he liked it.

 

***

 

Sherlock was running his test (John was more worried than he was willing to give him a lecture) while John and Molly were cleaning the floor with dustpan and mob. It was almost laughable how he could always get others to clean up his mess, but he tried not to think about it on most days. He wouldn't even have dared to imagine how people could perceive him, burning so bright and with the magnetic personality of his that most people could not resist for long, no matter how much it had to irritate them.  
  
"Hah!"

His triumphant exclamation made both of them look up, Molly wringing out the mob over a bucket with now rose tinted water inside, John about to throw the last shards into the bin.

"Did it work?" he asked, and Sherlock's answering grin was contagious. When they made eye contact across the room a smile broadened on their faces and the room temperature seemed to rise.

"We have a match," Sherlock proudly declared.

Molly cleared her throat, apparently feeling a bit like the fifth wheel, standing all by herself with the wet mob in her hands. "So … you- you wanted to call Greg now? I, eh, maybe I- I could do that. If you'd rather not. Do that."

"Who?" Sherlock's bad mood had improved enormously over the last hour.

" _Sherlock._ " John, on the other hand, was a bit on edge.

Molly clumsily put a hair out of her face and behind her ear. "I- There are one or two things I wanted to tell him anyway. About the female corpse. You know, brain matter... stuff, haha."

"Actually," John walked towards him, putting dustpan and brush down on the table. "I don't think phoning him right now is a very good idea."

Sherlock's grin was slowly melting away and he let the poisonous solution in his hands sink. "What? Why not?"

"Because of what … You- you realise you wouldn't have poisoned yourself in the first place if it wasn't for him, right? And he knew, he _knew_ bloody well what you've gone through and that you could as well still be in hospital because of that bloody damn gunshot wound that my wife-"

John was angry. Oh, John was so angry, and even though Sherlock knew it wasn't because of him but because of – well, everything really - he still felt responsible for his anger. He pulled his mouth down in a pout and leaned down to him, as far as his wounded body would allow it. "I know, John, I _know_. I hate to say that I can't do this on my own right now, but John-"

"You don't have to."

"-I don't know how or why, but this drug has a conspicuous similarity to the one from the Baskerville case."

"Wait, the one in Dartmoor? How?"

"I've no idea yet, I need to think."

"But... you're sure it couldn't be a coincidence? I mean, how many ways are there to poison someone?"

Sherlock was looking back at the lab table and the many test tubes he had emptied earlier. "Oh, you don't even want to know. And I fear that the universe is rarely so lazy."

Molly was watching the two of them the entire time, still awkwardly standing in the middle of the room. "So we … don't phone Greg?"

There was a worry crinkle between John's brows as he appeared to be thinking about their findings. "Did it affect you in any other way then? Other than just losing consciousness? Any bad dreams, nightmares?"

Sherlock inevitably had to think of his dream from last night. He hadn't had a chance to do so yet, and, quite frankly, had hoped he could avoid it and just move on. Yes, it was an odd … _coincidence_ that he was reimagining himself ( _and Lestrade!_ ) as a pirate after yesterday's events. But he also knew that John had read one of his favourite novels to him at night. (Yes, fiction. He would never admit it to anyone else.) Other than finding the book on John's lap this morning he also remembered the gentle, soothing smoothness of John's voice swirling around in his head together with the smell of the sofa cushions and the knowledge that John was right there, would stay with him. He could faintly remember soft touches, of John's hand in his, and the lightest brush of lips on his knuckles. He had no idea if he had dreamed that, too, would probably never know, but that didn't stop him from slowly rubbing his fingertips over the back of his hand.

"I hardly ever remember my dreams..."

His phone made a loud noise from where it was stuffed in his coat pocket. He took it out with John still looking at him all worried and tense. He frowned in surprise at the name he was reading on the phone screen in front of him.

"What?" John asked. "What is it?"

"It's... It's Janine."

John tilted his head in obvious and mutual surprise. "Janine? The Janine you- who- _the_ Janine?"

"How many Janines do you know exactly?"

It felt odd to see her name on his phone again. Opening her message had made him look at the other messages that had passed back and forth between them. It was even odder because he had really and honestly started to like her. A little. She was smart. A bit cocky sometimes, but not as dull as he had imagined her to be at first. Sometimes he had thought that she knew about John, that she could see right through him. It was as threatening as it was a relief.

"But what does she want from you _now_? You used her for your own advantage, your entire relationship with her was a fake! Why would she text you now?"

Did John sound jealous? Normally, he wouldn't dare to think something like this, because honestly, what would he be jealous of? But Janine had noticed it, too. And, with her being _cocky sometimes_ , she had clearly tried to provoke him more than Sherlock had himself at times. One of the sadly very few benefits he had gained out of his failed fake relationship.

"There's something wrong."

"Oh, really?" John didn't sound impressed.

Sherlock turned his phone away, so John wouldn't get a chance to glimpse at the older messages from Janine. The less John knew, the better, he'd figured. "She's at her neighbour's house."

John crossed his arms and waited. Waited an impatiently short amount of time. "Okay. I still don't see what that has to do with you, but okay, her neighbour."

"He's dead."

"Oh."

There was no more fuel to fill John's protest with after this, so they were leaving a still slightly upset Molly behind with a half-hearted apology from John and a pat on the shoulder from Sherlock, and called a cab outside of Bart's. No one spoke about the pavement.

 

***

 

Janine

 

18 Sep 2014

1:42

You really think so?

SH

1:45

Haha you shouldve seen his face when I walked  
out of your bedroom with only your shirt on

 

 

Today

9:01

Hey I know it's early but I went over to my neighbour  
and found him dead with … I don't even know how to  
explain this. Everything is a mess here. Please can you  
come? I don't want to call the police yet, I'd rather you  
took a look first. Janine xx

9:06

Alright, send me the address.  
We're on our way.

SH

 

 

***

 

Janine Hawkins was already standing on the pavement outside when the cab came to a halt. Sherlock got out first, holding the door open for John to climb out after him. He took a quick look around, well aware of a Janine who was patiently waiting, her chocolate hair open and falling down her shoulders in waves, which looked natural as well as elegant. She stood in front of a house made of brown-red bricks that had been painted by rain and dirt over the years. The front door was black and apparently not entirely closed, on the sides there were two flower tubs with yellow and purple pansies growing.  
  
Janine looked surprisingly calm when Sherlock approached her. "I'm glad you came."

She put her hands on both his upper arms, not quite wanting to go in for a hug. Her hands smoothed down the wool of his coat before she let them fall to her sides. John was looking away uncomfortably.  
  
"Have you talked to anyone else after you texted me?"

"No, I've been here the whole time." She looked him over and then some sort of concerned expression washed over her features. "You look tired."

Sherlock took a deep breath. Janine didn't seem to be angry with him anymore. Not that he had really believed her anger back then. She had gotten enough out of their _relationship_ after all, and they had probably both known that it wasn't what they were pretending it to be. _I know what kind of man you are._

_A man who doesn't have sex? A man who doesn't fancy women? A man who's hopelessly in love with his best friend?_

"This isn't about me."

"It always is, in a way, Sherl. You want a coffee? We could go in and I'll make some."

John was still looking away, now coughing loudly.

"John, you too?"

"No distractions! Show us where you've found the body, Janine," Sherlock said, his face tense from his growing annoyance.

"Yeah, sure, sorry, it's just … it was _wild_ in there. A lot to take in, and. God, the smell. I guess I'm just still a bit … in shock?"

Sherlock tried to hold back a remark as he remembered that a crime scene wasn't as easy to handle for people who weren't used to corpses. "You don't have to go in there again. I'm sure John and I-"

"No, it's. I want to. I'm sure with you there I can think more rationally."

"So it's," John started, sounding like he wanted to make a very important announcement for everyone to hear, "it's in there then? The body? The right building?" Pointing to the brick house behind them.

"Yeah, that one." Janine walked up the stone stairs and Sherlock and John followed. "The door was already open when I wanted to visit him this morning. That's how I got in," she said, pushing the front door open.

John shot a dismissive glance in her direction, which she couldn't see as he was walking behind them. "So that makes it okay to just break into a house?"

 _John doesn't make sense because he's always okay with_ our _burglaries_ and _Jealousy?_ were thoughts that only rushed through Sherlock's head distantly because his eyes were too occupied with taking in the crime scene. And oh boy, if this wasn't a crime scene, it would deserve its own art exhibition.

John bumped into him as he just stopped dead in his tracks.

"Hey, what- Oh, sweet Jesus."

"I don't think so," Sherlock said in passing as he took careful steps into the room.

There was the quiet sound of liquid dripping into a puddle. Of course it was blood. _Or at least made to look like blood._ The room appeared to be almost empty except for the pool of red that would in any case leave a stain on the oak wood floorboards. The white walls and large windows made it seem all the more surreal that there was no furniture, no carpet, no pictures. But they all noticed quickly that they were standing on this ceiling instead of the floor.

It felt like being caught in a bad dream. There was a table on the ceiling, as if it was glued to it. In fact, all the missing furniture was up there! The beige sofa, chairs, cupboards, even flowers, magazines, and cubes out of glass that appeared to be display cabinets. The illusion would have been perfect, if it wasn't for the other décor that was literally hanging from the ceiling. Ships. Mostly dreadnoughts, in all different kinds of sizes and colours. They were hanging from thin ropes, and the wind coming through the open window made them float on air, back and forth.

"He liked ships," Janine said, voice tight and arms crossed in front of her chest as if to distance herself from the scene.

But she wasn't even looking at the ships. Her gaze was fixed on the body, hanging upside down, rope tightened around his feet and his head missing. He was still fully clothed, jeans, dress shirt and a blazer, as though he had just come home from a night out. He was the source of the drops and the puddle, it seemed; the open neck covered in red liquid.

Sherlock walked towards the corpse and inspected the result of the beheading. The removal of the head was clearly the cause of death, so far so obvious, but something was off.

 _(Non-existant) head: cut clean off. Time passed since death: approximately ten hours (should ask John again). Act of murder: not performed here but in a place where the killer could work neatly and precisely to then bring him here. Blood around open neck and throat: not_ his _blood. Or: …_

"Not blood at all," Sherlock mumbled, trying to go through all the possibilities with this information.

"What?" John asked, now stepping closer, too.

"This is not blood. It's meant to look like blood."

"But..." John started, apparently not quite make sense of this. "But why? Why would someone go to all that trouble?"

"I have no idea. But I strongly suspect this to be poisonous."

"You mean … like the poison that-"

"Yes."

He would have to run tests again, of course, but Sherlock had little doubt that these crimes were connected. Possibly committed by the same person. Or maybe a group? John was right. All of this seemed to be a lot of trouble for one person alone.

He took another look down at the floor. Next to the puddle and half drowned inside of it was a golden velvet kerchief. Sherlock bent down to the sound of dripping to pick it up. He crouched down and pulled the halfway soaked cloth out to look at it. With black leather gloves he unfolded it, velvet indeed and almost sparkling in the daylight. He was holding the piece close to his face, making out the embroidery that looked like initials and some kind of message. As he read it, he almost let it fall into the puddle again.

 

_S.H._

 

 _Don't you like a rotten_  
_heart?_  
_Don't you like the_  
_chases?_  
_Can't you hear the distant_  
_bark_  
_Dying in my_  
_mazes?_  
_Don't you like your mind_  
_frozen?_  
_Burn up  
__You will never be chosen_  

 

He felt a tremor in his hands, growing stronger by the second. Could it be? Fake blood was sticking to his left glove. Another dripping sound. The tremor worsened.  
  
A whole bodied jerk rushed through him and his heart skipped a beat as he felt something touching his shoulder. He let out a long breath he didn't even know he'd been holding when he realised that John had appeared beside him.  
  
"You alright?"  
  
He jumped up and drew himself up to his full height within a second, then turned around wildly, trying to adjust to the pace of his mind and threw his hands in the air. Out of control. "I'm fine!" he snapped, far from a state that could be considered _fine_.  
  
He could feel, actually feel, the worry in John's sigh as he clenched his fists, but right now he just couldn't give a more convincing performance.  
  
"What's that?"  
  
Sherlock had to have let the kerchief fall to the ground in his attempts to prevent a panic attack. John picked it up, careful not to get in contact with the red stain. The more words he read of the unsettling poem, the more his eyes widened in horror.  
  
"Sherlock, that's ... that's your initials."  
  
Janine was looking over John's shoulder now, read it, shot a glance at Sherlock. Wordlessly she took the golden cloth out of John's hands, who only thought about protesting for two (maybe four) seconds, and turned it around.  
  
"Are these initials, too?" she asked.  
  
Sherlock didn't dare to turn around first, mumbling the words of the poem under his breath. "Like a rotten heart, rotten heart."  
  
"I.O.U..."  
  
He stopped in his tracks. His heart stopped.  
Swallowing down the lump pressing against his throat from the inside out, he closed his eyes in defeat. "No." _No, it can't be. It can't be!_

He opened his eyes again. In front of him there was a fridge hanging rather inelegantly from the ceiling. This whole scene was growing more and more into a ludicrous nightmare. The fridge was the only piece of furniture that was hanging onto a rope, along with the ships, and wasn't glued to the roof above them. Sherlock took careful steps towards it. The closer he got, the louder the quiet grinding of the rope sounded to him, swinging back and forth, moaning under the heavy weight. He already knew what he would find. _Mind frozen, mind frozen_. His hand reached out for the white shining door. He closed his fingers around the door and pulled.

He was right. There was a head in the fridge.

The cold, lifeless eyes were staring back at him. He looked defeated, too. Sherlock tried to swallow down the nausea once more. It got harder. He could easily see himself in that fridge, head cut off and his own body hanging from that ceiling like a piñata dressed in a Spencer Hall suit. There wouldn't be sweet goods coming out of him, even if you hit hard enough. Only silent cries, fake blood and the sound of ... _defeat_. And if defeat could make a sound, it would be the shuddering breath Sherlock was taking in now, the slow exhale that came with a silent whimper from the back of his throat. The similarities were enough to keep his imagination fuelled.

Light blue eyes, now turned grey with the life drained out of them, dark brown, slicked back hair that was curling where the gel lost its effect. He could see why Janine liked him. (Wasn't too difficult to make that deduction, really.)

Speaking of the devil, she was standing behind him now, a hand covering her mouth. "Oh God." She grabbed Sherlock's arm, apparently to support herself, and Sherlock let her. "I mean, I knew that it had to be somewhere, since it's not on the body, but. To see him like this..."

"You knew him well then?" Even Sherlock realised it was probably not the time to ask about her relationships of intimacy, but he needed something, anything to distract himself now.

"Not here, alright? Can we ... Can we just go over? Talk about it at my place?"

Sherlock cleared his throat. "Yes, that would probably... be for the best."

"I'll call the police there," she said.

John, who had kept his distance since Sherlock had more or less rejected him, gave a short nod, and they left the house as they had entered it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [30 Seconds to Mars - Northern Lights](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTKnSbFBIh8)
> 
>  
> 
> _I am alive, I'm just playing dead._  
>  _I'm gonna say what should have never been said._  
>  _The giants of the world are crashing down._  
>  _The end is near, I hear the trumpets sound._  
>  _You would eat your young._


	8. And They Both Fell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John was obviously frustrated. He was not actually angry with Sherlock but with himself. There it was again. The threat, breathing down the back of his neck, to lose him again and his own selfishness urging him to prevent it from happening at all costs. And whatever it was that was telling John Magnussen couldn't be the next Moriarty, couldn't be the next big villain to fight, that there was something else lingering out there in the shadows, it was telling him so loudly, was screaming at him from below.
> 
> Sherlock tried not to clench his fists. "No, of course not! I just want to put an end to this. John." Before he could lose to his own fragile emotions, he forced himself to calm down. There was something else he had to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Softly, softly we're getting there.

Ten minutes later. They were all sitting awkwardly around the kitchen counter, each with their own cups of coffee. Sherlock took four teaspoons of sugar this time. None of them was really present, not really keeping company, thinking and wandering around somewhere in their own minds. Janine was the first to break the silence, letting out a long sigh of exhaustion.

"Sorry I've made you see this." It wasn't clear if she was talking to Sherlock only or to both of them.

Either way, Sherlock answered for both of them. "It's not is if we haven't seen worse."

Truth was, this week had made them see pretty bad things so far. Horrible, completely dehumanizing crimes. For someone who wasn't used to this kind of _lifestyle_ it had to be traumatising. If Sherlock's speculation was correct then these crimes were all connected. Dots in a sticky net, waiting for him to put them together. And if the spider was playing tricks on him, set a trap and wait in the dark, it would eat him alive should he fall for it.

"Your initials," John said calmly.

Sherlock gave him a look he didn't like. A look of _What are you talking about?_  as if it wasn't important. But it was so, so important. Someone wanted to seek him out again. As obvious as a threat could be. Or maybe, (and he practically forced himself to think it because deep inside he still feared that Sherlock wouldn't feel, wouldn't care) maybe the look he gave him was a look of terror.

"Your initials, Sherlock, it had _your_ initials on it!" His voice got louder, urgently.

Even Janine looked at him as if he didn't make sense now. Great. Like she wouldn't be the main reason for his currently short temper in the first place. Her touching him. Why was this such a big deal? Especially now, especially under these circumstances, with Sherlock being threatened by a possible serial killer (again) and a man dead. And yet, his apparent jealousy was getting the better of him. He'd thought he could be better than this.

"But are these..." Janine set her mug down onto the counter. "I mean, sure, your initials, S.H. But are you sure it's not just a code? A message or something? Maybe it's meant for me. I'm the one who found him and knew him, after all."  
  
_It's not_ , John thought cynically. _Because it's always meant for him. Those threats. They all want him. That's why he's got that hole in his chest now. Because I was too slow._  
  
"And my surname starts with an H, too. I don't know, I have a really bad feeling about this, Sherl."  
  
John quickly led the cup to his mouth and took a big gulp. It burned his mouth and on the way down his throat and made his tongue feel as rough as that of a cat. _Sherl_.  
  
"I.O.U," he mumbled. Where had he heard this before? He knew this exact set of letters, this code, had to exist somewhere in the back of his head. Bringing all sorts of feelings with it that laid themselves onto his chest like wet cement, hardening further, the deeper he was trying to dig.  
  
Sherlock had to feel it, too. Stormy grey eyes were widened in suppressed horror, looking through or behind him at an invisible threat.  
  
"Sherlock." John put a hand on his shoulder to bring him back to him. Sherlock's body gave a quick twitch, and a splash of the coffee in the cup he was still holding flew onto the table.

"What does it mean?" He whispered the words, as if they could just exchange secrets that no one else would know, and he searched his eyes for anything, almost desperate to be the one to bring him back. He knew there were many things Sherlock had never told him.  
  
"I-"  
  
"The police are here, I think." Janine interrupted Sherlock's unspoken words.  
  
But she was right. The police arrived shortly after, contaminating the scene that had once been an innocent living room of a ship fanatic. They all got questioned, but Sherlock could convince them of Janine being too churned up for any of them to come down to the Yard. ( _"Has nobody thought of bringing a blanket?!"_ ) Since they knew him it worked, even though Lestrade wasn't with them, and even though everyone was a little surprised that Sherlock would voluntarily stay with a client in shock. But they all knew John was a doctor and that Sherlock wouldn't leave without John anymore, so that seemed to be enough.  
  
When the police officers were gone again, investigating the crime scene next door, Janine seemed to be much more on edge. She was walking up and down her living room, leaving both Sherlock and John at a loss for something helpful to say. She was pouring herself another cup of coffee as soon as the last officer was out of the door. John could sense that she would still be in a mild state of shock, needing something to calm her nerves, but he couldn't read her with certainty, since her face was turned the other way. He still went by his instincts and his sense of duty as a doctor.

"It's over now. You should try to distract yourself and relax for a while. Here, in your ... yeah, it's actually quite a nice house for a... secretary." Oh, that was inappropriate. He hadn't meant to sound like he was looking down at her (not everyone could be a doctor or a famous detective after all, and he knew that), but he just couldn't get the bit of bitterness out of his voice, and was now cursing himself for it.

"I'm not just a secretary", she said, turning around, the steam rising from the mug in her hands cloaking her face behind a veil of hot air. "And it's not over."

"What do you mean?" Sherlock asked, having been silent for far too long. Busy thinking, probably.

"I- Okay, look, I. There's something I didn't say."

They both looked at her expectantly.

"I think his death was meant for me. To threaten me, I mean. So I just. I think they'll be after me next."

"You suspect that they're targeting you and that you won't be save here," Sherlock concluded.

She answered by slowly looking up at him under long lashes, with that big pair of brown eyes of hers, and for a moment John found himself selfishly, selfishly fearing Sherlock would just invite her to stay a night at Baker Street. ( _In his bed again, perhaps. Oh God._ )

"Or maybe Magnussen doesn't trust me anymore."

John could see something changing in Sherlock's eyes as his ears picked up on that name. "You think he is in on all this?"

"Well, no, I mean … he's a business man. But I've honestly no idea."

Sherlock was looking sharply over to John now. "You have your Sig with you?"

John was side eyeing Janine at the mention of his gun. But after last time, yes, always. "Yes ... Why?"

"If her assumption turns out to be correct, there might be a chance for us to end this tonight."

_Oh good, she's not coming to Baker Street with us … Wait, what?_

"Wait, what are you saying? You want to go on a stake out from that bit of a hunch?"

"Oh, you don't think I'm crazy, that's- that's good," Janine said to Sherlock.

"John. We know these murders are linked, you and I both know. And I need to find out how. It has-" He closed his eyes, it pained him to say it. To reveal to John what he already knew. That they were after him again, that his chances to get killed had never lowered, not from the moment he stepped over the edge of that rooftop to the second he was standing here in front of him, alive but with a hole in his chest, breathing but with a pain in his lungs that had nothing to do with physical pain. "It clearly has something to do with me. I am still a threat to Magnussen. And maybe Janine too is seen as such now."

"And you think attempting to catch her supposed assassinator or psychological torturer or whatever the fuck this is all about won't get you in a life or death danger situation again? Is that what you think?" John was obviously frustrated. He was not actually angry with Sherlock but with himself. There it was again. The threat, breathing down the back of his neck, to lose him again and his own selfishness urging him to prevent it from happening at all costs. And whatever it was that was telling John Magnussen couldn't be the next Moriarty, couldn't be the next big villain to fight, that there was something else lingering out there in the shadows, it was telling him so loudly, was screaming at him from below.

Sherlock tried not to clench his fists. "No, of course not! I just want to put an end to this. John." Before he could lose to his own fragile emotions, he forced himself to calm down. There was something else he had to say.

"I've got something far more dangerous with me. The ultimate advantage that no one knows like I do. I've got _you_ by my side. Janine doesn't have that. She doesn't have a John Watson. I'm not gonna lose again. With you."

And against every rational argument John could have ever thought of, that settled it.

 

***

 

The balcony gave an acceptable view on Janine's house. Janine had assured them that the building was mostly empty (expect for some rats, maybe), so it wouldn't be a problem for them to stand guard there for a few hours. John still didn't understand why they went through all that trouble from a hunch, but Sherlock ... also didn't really. He knew he needed time to clear his head. Time to get rid of the images of the head in the fridge and the beheaded hanging from the ceiling in front of him whenever he closed his eyes. He knew exactly why this was affecting him so much. The threat was back. The threat of _him_. And with it, his promise.  
  
I.O.U. _I owe you._  
  
It was around three in the afternoon by now. Janine had wanted to go shopping for groceries and after offering to buy them something to eat ( _"Oh, Sherl, you look a bit pale."_ \- he was always pale.) John had, of course, agreed. They and the Sig had accompanied her, because of her now rising paranoia, awkward enough for the both of them. (Who knew what Janine herself thought about these things?) Sherlock could sense how uncomfortable John was feeling around her, his body more tense than usual, his mouth a thin line and there was the occasional clench of a fist, but he had visibly calmed a little when Sherlock had eaten one of the scones Janine had bought.  
  
Now they were sitting here, on the abandoned balcony of the other building, and the silence, or rather the noises of a busy Londoner's workday, was filling the space between them.  
  
Sherlock kept himself busy by not trying to look like they were watching someone else's house from above, leaning over the railing naturally and watching the clouds chase each other. The wind was pulling on his hair and coat, and he enjoyed the fresh air like a starving man would a meal.  
  
John stood in the other corner, looking stuff up on his phone (he could now type faster, Sherlock was a bit proud of him) when he suddenly huffed out a breath and shook his head smiling. It wasn't a friendly smile.  
  
"Of course the papers would throw themselves on it sooner or later."  
  
John was holding the phone out for Sherlock to see the display. He had opened an article from an online newspaper, describing the violent and 'almost to be found aesthetic' death of Violet Hunter, the woman someone had tried making into a mermaid. By skimming through it, his face gave an uncomfortable twitch when his eyes stopped at one name in particular. The name of the author.  
  
"Ah, Kitty Riley. Didn't know she was still around."  
  
John looked at his phone again and groaned as the name confirmed itself. "But for no good reason, apparently. This is not the objective description of a crime scene, this is journalism making it into a thriller novel to get clicks. Disgusting." He shook his head once more. "At least they haven't picked up on your name yet. No need for this kind of publicity again. Especially not after that bloody junkie story that you-"  
  
He made himself shut up now. Tense silence between them after the reminder of all the hurting obstacles and everything that had gone wrong so far. Three years ago it had been publicity that destroyed all they had been, all they had built together. What had drawn Moriarty's attention to Sherlock Holmes, ( _burn the heart out of you_ ) what had killed his reputation. Along with himself. And now, yes, with that bloody junkie story Sherlock had invented for Charles Augustus Magnussen there wasn't actually as much of an invented story to it than both of them would've liked.  
  
The last thing Sherlock wanted was to witness John being pulled through all that pain again, so he did what he always did. He tried to make him laugh. "I don't think I'm that interesting anymore after the tabloids pumped everything out of those shagging stories."  
  
John coughed loudly, almost as if he had choked on something. Sherlock wasn't sure if that was the laugh.  
  
"Janine might be more of a celebrity than me these days."

John seemed to think about this for a moment. "Maybe that's why she got targeted. I bet she looks terrible in the hat though."

 _Oh_. He supposed that right now was John trying to make Sherlock laugh. It worked approximately as well as his own joke had, filling the balcony with awkward silence instead of laughter. John looked over his shoulder – anything but in Sherlock's direction – and Sherlock was looking down at his own shoes.

Before long he decided that John's face was way more interesting and worth looking at, so he took the risk of picking up on the bad jokes because they were John's bad jokes (also reeking of jealousy … a bit) and looked up at him under long lashes, trying to be casual about it. "More terrible than I do? I doubt it, John."

"You don't look terrible in it, you look … cute."

_Oh. My. God._

Instant regret slowly painted itself over John's features, but instead of making a fuss about taking it back he just swallowed, tilted his chin up and left it to Sherlock to make of it what he will. Which was a mistake, apparently, as Sherlock refused to blink for a worryingly long amount of time.

_Open file: > John's thoughts on him: > Searching for … 'cute' > ... ... ... > Error: File not found._

He managed to shake his head a fraction, back and forth, to pretend this had not just thrown him off entirely. "Cute? Really? Using the same term for me you used to tag your videos of cats falling off furniture with?"

John coughed again. ( _Having a cold coming on?_ ) "To be fair, you also climb on furnitre. All the time, actually."

"But I don't fall off of it."

"A very graceful cat, then."

There was a short pause in which they tried to stay serious. Right before they burst into laughter. Sherlock almost couldn't believe what he was feeling there. It was as if nothing had ever changed between them, and they laughed together again, just here, in this little space of shared time. For once, it was their moment. And the feeling of affection and warmth was stronger than he remembered. Was it the final realisation of his deep love for John that had made the connection he felt towards him seem so much more intimate or had he actually just forgotten how it had been like?

Their laughter died after a while, and their old friend named silence returned shortly after.

John, _oh brave John_ , was the first to chase it away this time. "Ehm, Sherlock. There... there's been something on my mind." He was frowning at him, but softly, and now he smiled a bit. "You _hate_ literature."

Sherlock interrupted him calmly and with equal softness. "I don't hate literature. Go on."

"How did you know about the story? The story of the Little Mermaid? I remember when you were too stubborn to be told that the earth goes around the sun-"

"Shut up."

"-but this time you immediately figured out the connection to a children's book and talked us through it brilliantly." Sherlock thought he could feel himself blushing. "So I've just been wondering."

Sherlock threw a glance over the railing to look down at Janine's house. Nothing happening. A black car was driving by. Somewhere in the distance two ravens could be heard among the noises of London traffic.

He took a breath and let it out with a deep sigh. "Mycroft read to me. When we were children. He wasn't always … I mean, he kind of was, but he wasn't always a rubbish big brother. Made me all excited about the sea and its unexplored mysteries. You see, I've always been drawn to the things no one else could see. I wanted to be the first." Sherlock was crossing his arms now, leaning further over the balcony, and John could only crack a smile at the beauty of his profile. "He read to me stories of monsters and ghost ships,  _mermaids_ and pirates _._ Fearless, they were, and willing to fight for the treasures they have captured on their adventures."

"You wanted to be a pirate when you were a boy," John concluded, his quiet words almost blown away by the wind.

A small smile tugged at Sherlock's lips and he gave in to it. "It's all I ever wanted. Spending my life at sea, fearlessly, recklessly stealing the treasures of ancient, long forgotten islands. And I would've surpassed them all. I knew I was clever. Of course, not as clever as Mycroft, but he was going to work in another field anyway. He could be the British Government, as long as the seven seas belonged to me. That's what my unreasonable, juvenile self thought at the age of nine, at least. The reality was always going to be different. And a lot harder. And a lot more painful."

Fearing that he had said too much, exposed himself too thoughtlessly, he too coughed once now, to make this little insight of his childhood fit more into the general context of a normal conversation for normal people. Oh, who was he even kidding?

But John appeared on his side now, his shoulder lightly bumping into his, like the much safer and reluctant equivalent of, say, the squeeze of a hand in his hand, or a hug. For a while they were just looking over the railing together, just sunken in their own tiny universes full of unspoken thoughts.

When John spoke up again, his voice was like warm honey. "Mycroft has asked me this once. _He elects to be a detective. What can we deduce about his heart?_ I think maybe now I understand what he meant." He was turning his head to look at him. Sherlock followed his lead. ( _Follow him always._ )

"Sherlock. You were _never_ going to be boring. You have _always_ surpassed them all. You're-" He felt the lightheadedness bubble up from the depths of his chest and through his whole body now. "You're Sherlock Holmes. You _are_ an adventure. To me."

They were so close. So close it stole all the breath out of Sherlock's lungs, and he had trouble breathing, trouble despite the wind offering itself to be breathed, throwing itself against his face more forcefully now, but it went unnoticed. They were so close that for the split second of a blink - and oh, was it a stupid, _stupid_ idea to even consider this and let this foolishness infect his brain - he thought that he might kiss him.

He didn't, of course he didn't, but instead seemed to search his face for something else. _An adventure to him._ But yes, he had known this from the start. John Watson, the lost and abandoned war hero, needing a fix. Needing Sherlock, the detective and the cases. The thrill of the chase, and-

_Of course you are. You're my best friend._

Maybe he was being unfair to John. Maybe he was being desperate and heartbroken and bitter and, above all, utterly clueless as to what John was still doing here. How did it fit together that John was missing the blood pumping through his veins, he and his _best friend_ against the world, as they say, when he should be at home, mourning the life (with _Mary_ ) he could have had? When he was supposed to be by her side right now? And yet, he wasn't. Yet, John was here, with him, close, searching his face for something that would get him to move, somewhere. Anywhere. Anywhere else but here, in the middle of this sentimental chaos between them, anywhere.

"Sherlock..."

It happened within small moments the human eye was blind to, or protecting itself from harm by pressing eyelids together, and suddenly he found himself lying on the cold ground of the balcony's paved stones, John above him. There was pain, his heart beat heavily under the weight of the impact. He relived the scene in his head.

_"Sherlock..." John's head turned around, shooting one glance down at the street, before he shouted, "Down!" and pushed him, pushed him with all the strength he could give, down and they both fell. There was the swift sound of air being pushed away next to his ear, the distant figment of having seen the bullet cutting one of his hairs in two out of the corner of his eye and, when his back had just hit the ground, the crackling noise of breaking glass._

Now all there was left for him was pain. Pain and massive relief.

Sherlock's head was trapped between both John's arms with which he kept himself from falling onto him. His eyes were wide open, staring into John's that had the calming effect of grounding him in a safer place, somewhere by the ocean with an undergoing sun and a beach of rocks. It was undeniable that he had just saved his life.  
  
_So many times and in so many ways._  
  
It was also undeniable that someone had tried to assassinate him. One glance to the window to his left, marked by the imprint of a flying bullet, was evidence enough.  
  
"Are you alright?" Oh God, that voice. He had worried John again, but he shouldn't be. He was fine, he was-  
  
A great pain rippled through his whole body as he tried to speak. (Bad idea.) He coughed and an ache shot through him just where his heart lay beneath his rib cage.  
  
The wrinkle at John's right brow deepened with worry and clear helplessness that, despite being a more than capable and experienced doctor, made him hesitate. In the single second Sherlock managed to force his eyes open, now wet and watery from tears forming, he noticed something else in his gaze. Something John would never intentionally let him see. It was anger. Hate, even. He knew that face, and he knew who it was meant for. It was meant for whoever had done this to Sherlock, and it was one of the most dangerous things he had ever seen.  
  
With a voice choked by the lack of air, he managed to gasp, bring himself to speak up eventually. Just to calm John, _do not worry about me, I'm fine_ , like John had him so many times before. Sometimes with only his eyes.  
  
"That. That th-thing you ... you did, that- that was ... _good_."  
  
John looked confused at first, but Sherlock cracked a smile and now his face changed, too. He huffed out a laugh that made his eyes sparkle just like they had done the first night they had solved a crime together, _"Fantastic!"_ , and now Sherlock couldn't hold himself back. His whole face turned into a grin, but the pain came back immediately and he clenched his fist into the fabric above his heart.  
  
John's reaction came in a split second. He sat back and pulled Sherlock up, careful but consistently, pulled him close to him and wrapped his arms around his trembling form. Sherlock coughed and coughed, heavier, and he was certain his heart had to be bleeding again. Almost certain he had to be spitting blood all over John's jacket. But he still held onto him.

It was like nothing he had felt in a long time, in a long string of years, miserable and lonely years, but even back then, when wonderful John had become a part of his life ( _the_ part of his life), he had never been held like this. Warmth settled in and around him. The tremors of his body spread coldness and numbing, but his fluttering heart fought and fought and would not give up as long as he could feel his strong soldier being wrapped all around him.

The strong soldier that pressed his head against his own shoulder, trying to get the imagined bleeding of Sherlock's real heart, his real bullet wound to stop, thinking, " _He fell again, he fell again, but this time I'm here and this time I saved him. For the moment, I saved him."_

And then everything dropped to blackness for Sherlock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [From Indian Lakes - Breathe, Desperately](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpOAlUuo8tY)
> 
>  
> 
> _We breathe so desperately_  
>  _As if it's the only thing we need_  
>  _And we don't care if it's not_  
>  _Breathing honestly_  
>  _We're burning our lungs with it_  
>  _And we don't care_  
>  _We don't care at all_


	9. Redbeard

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Shhh, Sherlock. Sherlock." John tried (desperately so, could it be?) to get through to him. He took his face in both his hands and leant in. Their foreheads touched and John's blue eyes (the bags, the wrinkles, the hints of stubble, forgot one spot on his chin while in a hurry of shaving this morning - Sherlock didn't know why he bothered, he liked a bit of stubble on him - oh, that was calming, calming distraction) took in all he could see, then.
> 
> He knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to blend out the danger for him. John's expression was intense, and Sherlock was sure his own must have been disturbed and disturbing at the same time. He felt out of his mind. Not from this world.

Sherlock woke up with his head throbbing to the rhythm of his heartbeat. _Wum. Wa-wumm. Wa-wumm_. It was the contrast his body was experiencing that made him blink his sleepy eyes open. He felt relaxed. He felt calm. But at the same time as if he hadn't slept nearly enough to ever fill these gaps of exhaustion, and all the sleep his body was yearning for, trying to seek it out of him now, he told himself, was why his eyes felt bloodshot, why his limbs felt numb and useless, why his mouth was dry. _Water_. Yes, water was a fantastic idea. Where was John?

John. Oh. Oh, _John_. Now he remembered what had happened only - what, a few hours ago? What time was it? But it was fine, somehow, had to be fine because his head wasn't bothering him as much anymore and he allowed himself to close his eyes again and blow the nauseating thoughts away. Enough suffering for now.

He felt a warm presence next to his shoulder and a sudden _psssh_ next to his ear, but the temptation to sink back into slumber was distracting.

"Here, Sherlock."

This soft, soft voice. Something within him melted warmly at hearing it. John, the guardian angel. He had saved his life again, he realised. The amount of times wasn't even measurable anymore.

"Have some water."

Sherlock forced his eyes to blink open, but he didn't see much at all at first. A distant flicker drew his attention. John must've lit the fireplace. He could make out the blanket from the back of John's chair, which was now laying on the seating surface in a crumpled manner that made it look a little lost and the chair itself a little naked. In addition to this an open book had taken in Sherlock's place on his own chair. Conclusion: John planned on spending the night in the living room. _With him_. And for some brief seconds it felt as though the flicker of the fireplace were caught up beneath his ribs, warming him up.

His gaze shifted to look at the one staring at him. John's face spoke of worry, weariness and short temper. It didn't make him look as beautiful as did his smiles, his laughter, his amazement. But he still displayed everything he wanted to see for the rest of his life. _Definitely an angel_. As his eyes found the glass of water in his hands, the sight of it implanted a craving in him that made him feel like the thirstiest man alive. And yet his first instinct was to never have anyone make him drink it. John had dissolved a tablet in it, that was where the hissing sound had come from. _Why? To get him to shut down, sedate him?_ But John was a doctor and his friend and just wanted to help him, so he drank from it, eventually.

Gratefulness was the last thing he would remember before drifting off to sleep again.

 

***

 

When he woke up hours later, the fireplace wasn't lit anymore. Instead daylight was shining through the curtains by means of modesty. He was feeling much better, wounds forgotten completely for the few seconds of confusion in which he was caught between the fading pieces of his dream (he didn't remember what the dreams were about, rarely remembered) and the reality that was the living room. As he was slowly breathing in and out he knew that resting had done his usually restless body much good.

His head still hurt a little, but his chest hurt more. It was weighing him down as if his heart was a magnet and the cushion of the sofa was its antipole. _Damn_ , gunshot wounds fucking hurt. He very rarely swore, even in his own head, but right now he felt like it. Fucking snipers. Or assassins. Or both. Whatever had tried to shoot him this time. Yes, he may not like himself (or his own life, for that matter) at the moment (well, for many moments over the last years) but that didn't mean he wasn't sick of being shot at. If he was ever going to be alright with his life ending, he would only ever agree for it to happen in one of two ways. Either by his own hands or by choosing death to spare the lives of his friends. (One friend, one friend in particular, and much more than a friend, and God help him.) Both of those scenarios had already occured in the past and almost succeeded in killing him off for good.

He would love to see John right now. Perhaps he would see that Sherlock was doing better (of course he would, he was a very good doctor) and lose some of his worry/weariness/short temper at the sight of him. And perhaps he was even still sitting in his chair (how far had he come with Sherlock's favourite book?) and just waited for him to wake up. He wanted to open his eyes and look over to the other side of the room. But there was hesitation. The fear of being wrong about this, of not seeing John sitting there and having his hopes crushed again. Even though John was allowed to sleep wherever he wanted, and even though Sherlock didn't even want to be watched over like a helpless child, there was yet something so attractive and reassuring in knowing that someone - no, not just someone but John! - cared so much that he would stay. Thought he was worth caring about. A concept that was still so unbelievable and fragile to Sherlock that he knew it would break as easily as a snowflake as soon as there was even the slightest evidence against this.

He was just about to open his eyes, but as he wasn't using all of his senses, others sharpened. He left them closed. Something was off. Something in here didn't smell like home. An invader? An uneasiness grew in him, and his eyes snapped open and found the ceiling above him. He turned his head to the left and-- He should've known. No. No, couldn't have. No, no, no. Please no.

 _Panic panic panic panic panic shaking fingers elevated pulse panic_ rushed into him and numbed his whole body. The shiver beneath his flesh was so icy his bones froze and stiffened, was so hot the next moment that he could feel the sweat running down his back. His eyes were blown open so widely that he was sure his eyelids must have been pushing into his skull, and they burned, burned from being bloodshot. In a half sitting, half lying position he pressed his body against the back of the sofa in an attempt to survive.  
  
God, he wanted to cry, he wanted to scream.  
  
_Redbeard, Redbeard, dead, so many dead, everyone he loved and how, how could this happen to him in his flat, home. Nowhere was he safe. They will die here. Inevitable that they do._  
  
He only heard himself screaming as he recognised the sound of the front door being slammed shut and one pair of feet running up the stairs.  
  
"Sherlock!"  
  
John burst through the door and let the shopping bag drop to the ground. "What's going on?! Oh, Jesus bloody-"  
  
A speechlessness had him in its grip, for a moment, before he could walk a few steps towards the thing that was bleeding out on their carpet and then walk back again. "Shit. Sorry, Sherlock, sorry."  
  
He sank to his knees in front of the sofa, but Sherlock couldn't look at him. Not until he felt a hand on his cheek, steady, rough, warm.  
  
"Shhh, look at me. Look at me." John's voice was so soft, was small and calming to his blood pressure. He couldn't understand what he was saying to him, as if he wasn't even speaking any of the languages he was familiar with, but the meaning of it he received through the tone of his voice, the way it cracked with worry in the end, the low volume that was a sea at bay instead of Sherlock's raging ocean. He pressed his face into John's palm and took deep breaths.

"I shouldn't have left you alone." John was blaming himself again. "God, what is happening? This can't be happening."

The glance he threw over his shoulder told him, though, that this could very well be happening, but the question was _how_ and why _him_ , why always, _always_ him?

It was an Irish Setter maybe, with long, shiny fur and brown, loyal eyes that were rolled back now, blood running out of one of them, covering the white sclera and sticking to the hairs on the dog's nose. Its mouth was hanging open with its tongue out like it wanted to emphasise that it was done with, that there was nothing anyone could do now. Nothing to be done for it anymore with its ribcage cut open like that of a pig one would expect to find in the slaughterhouse scene of a horror film. The deadly injuries were too precise to come from a vicious beast, too messy to have been committed with a lot of expertise or care. It was just brutal, just a purely evil end for an innocent animal.  
  
To Sherlock it was so much more.  
  
The blood was drying on split bones. The open torso and one of the arms that had been ripped out had made the blood splatter everywhere ( _not here - killed somewhere else_ ) all over the fur, and it wasn't brown anymore, it was just red, red, not shiny anymore, sticky with erythrocytes and pieces of gut. The open body revealed the organs, smaller than that of a human, now fragile and broken. Part of the intestine had fallen out and lay in the puddle of blood on the carpet. _It was a message_ , a distant voice in Sherlock's head tried to scream at him. All his messages come covered in blood.  
  
His heart stuttered heavily, stopped almost, as his aching head thought it had seen the animal's lungs moving, and he prayed, he never prayed but now he prayed, for it to not be alive, to not have to suffer from those horrors Sherlock was certain would burn themselves into the back of his skull.  
  
"Red-"  
  
"Shhh, Sherlock. Sherlock." John tried (desperately so, could it be?) to get through to him. He took his face in both his hands and leant in. Their foreheads touched and John's blue eyes (the bags, the wrinkles, the hints of stubble, forgot one spot on his chin while in a hurry of shaving this morning - Sherlock didn't know why he bothered, he liked a bit of stubble on him - oh, that was calming, calming distraction) took in all he could see, then.  
  
He knew what he was trying to do. He was trying to blend out the danger for him. John's expression was intense, and Sherlock was sure his own must have been disturbed and disturbing at the same time. He felt out of his mind. Not from this world.

"Redbeard," he breathed out in rough syllables. He was trying, trying to close his eyes, to ignore, to forget.  
  
"I'm here. Just close your eyes, Sherlock, I'm here. This time I'm here for you."  
  
Sherlock didn't know what he was talking about. John had always been there. Had always been his last and most powerful resource to hold onto when he had only wanted it all to end. But his words came through, finally, and he did close his eyes. John's thumbs were stroking over his cheekbones. That was better. He wasn't just told that John was there. He was able to feel him. He wanted to believe him, he really did. But where he lacked in trust, his body bought every word, and every feeling fluttered like butterflies.  
  
He saw monsters every time he closed his eyes. Just shadows, just thorns, and he heard the sound of a dog's bark that was caught in a loop. A bark from the dead.

_Can't you hear the distant_ _bark_ _dying in my_ _mazes?_

When John pressed his lips against his forehead, it stopped. Then returned distantly.  
  
Finally, Sherlock gave in. Carefully, as if he would fear rejection, he wrapped his arms around his back and, yes, gave in. Gave in to John now kissing the top of his curls, his nose buried within them. He felt John breathing above him, breathing him in, it seemed. He was safe now. Here, in his arms, he felt safe, he felt detoxified, he felt. Well. Loved. There was no other word for it. Loved and safe and secure in John Watson's arms. A heart-warming illusion.

 

***

  
He watched his fingers shaking around the cup of tea in his hands as he was sitting at the kitchen table in silence. He had tried to tear his eyes off the spot, look somewhere else, but it had only ended in his body being ready to induce a panic attack and the barrier between common sense and irrational fears to lower, so he let it be. To his own displeasure, naturally. He didn't know if the feeling of helplessness was worse than the panic itself.  
  
Sherlock couldn't even take a look at the blood soaked carpet, for he was afraid to find himself on there with his head smashed in. Couldn't look at his own chair because what if Moriarty was sitting in it, drinking tea? Laughing at him. He bet that's all the psychopath had ever wanted. To see him as broken as this.  
  
John was currently bringing out the dog corpse in a plastic bag. Dead for several hours, he had said. But still warm. God, why was he getting goosebumps at the thought of this? Crime scenes were his bloody life! He didn't only inspect bodies for a living but for the thrill of it! And now? Look at him now. Couldn't even handle corpses anymore. _Pathetic._ This was horrible. He didn't recognise himself. _Unstable_.  
  
Sherlock almost flinched when the door to the kitchen opened. Almost. John stepped inside, clearly still shaken by the recent events and a bit wet. _Wet? Ah, it's raining outside._ This observation took him far too long and he knew it. _Stupid._  
  
"Enough is enough, Sherlock."  
  
Oh. John sounded angry. Angry with him.  
  
"No, don't- Don't look at me like this. You haven't done anything wrong, _god_ , do you really think that?"  
  
He hurriedly pulled out a chair and sat down opposite him. Leant forward over the table and stretched out his hands towards him. "Listen. Whoever's doing this to you, to _us_ , is a sick, sadistic bastard. Someone who kills people _and_ animals just to frighten you."  
  
"I'm not frightened!" Sherlock snapped instinctively. As if lying to John had ever done any good at all.  
  
John only let out a deep sigh. "Yeah, I. I can see that."  
  
He gave him a _look_. Sherlock swallowed, which hurt somewhere deep in his throat. John had never liked when he tried to hide his feelings. And in retrospect he had always been right about this and Sherlock had been wrong. And maybe, just maybe, feelings weren't always a weakness.  
  
"We have to do something. We need a plan."  
  
Yes, John - John, the loyal soldier, the one to follow orders and listen and trust - was now trying to come up with a solution himself. He could probably sense that Sherlock wouldn't do so himself. Because Sherlock didn't know if they needed a plan. Didn't know if he wanted to plot and stick to a plan. He knew what he needed was John.

"We need to defend ourselves next time. Be prepared. Find him before he finds us."

"We don't even know who the killer even is, John. Where he comes from, what he wants. Your words sound reasonable without a second thought and would very likely motivate a group of privates, but are, by themselves, nothing more than vague and hollow words." Did he sound harsh? He knew he did. But he was helpless and he was done for, and had let out far too many emotions for today to not rely on dry logic now.  
  
John clearly looked a little sore at this. It was written on his face. _You think you're the one with the 'adult plans' and I'm the child here, eh? Well, you're more of a child, you know?_ Yes, all written on his face, but instead he just said, "So you just come up with the connection between the crimes that will lead us to the killer." Proving once more that he had no idea what was going on.

"I can't."

"Why not? You already figured out that he always uses the same poison."  
  
Sherlock was slowly starting to lose his patience. It wasn't that he didn't like explaining but that he hated to have to explain that he couldn't do anything. Couldn't fix it this time. Especially to John who (and God only knew why he, of all people) was the one to never lose faith in Sherlock's abilities. Even when in the end he was _always such a disappointment._

"That's basically nothing. We have nothing at all! Yes, he uses poison, but he doesn't kill with it! It's a bloody threat, a metaphor, John! It's supposed to remind me that he is deadly, that every step on the way could be my last."

John pursed his lips in uncomfortable silence. He clearly wanted to talk about something else (or not at all anymore) but forced himself to go on, brave as he was. "So you admit that you're the one he's after."

Sherlock shoved the chair back to get up almost violently fast and suppressed an eyeroll. His body was restless, on edge. "Yes! Yes, I suppose I do. It was bloody obvious, but you've seen it too this time. Congratulations!" His hands flew up at that last word.

John stood up as well, the legs of his chair scraping over the floor. His lips were pressed together to form a thin line of irritation. He shouldn't be this unfair to him. Sherlock knew he had no reason to be like this now. But he was afraid, he was on completely loose ground and had been attacked in his own home. He didn't feel like sparing feelings right now, which was so ironic that he could've laughed out loud in all his confusion.

"Tell me what's going on here, then. Will they be coming after you next?"

"I don't know! Alright? I have no idea and I hate this. All I know is that somewhere there's someone who makes poison that could easily cloud one's mind but is deadly at a higher dosage. For God's sake, look at what nonsense I'm talking again, everything is deadly at a higher dosage. But he doesn't even kill his victims with it. He slaughters and it is always symbolism. It's... it's the most poetic way to break me, John. To burn me. He's done it this time. There's nothing I can do."  
  
"There's always something you can do," John replied quietly. "Look, you see patterns where no one else-"  
  
"Don't you see? I'm useless!" Sherlock was ready to punch something. Preferably himself. "The only thing I was ever good for has come for me at last."  
  
"What- what does that mean? You just want to continue to let this happen? Let more people get killed? We can't just give up!"  
  
"We're not giving up, _I'm_ giving up. You're too naive to do something like that."  
  
A deep and nasal inhale was the only thing to be heard in the kitchen except for breathing. Sherlock hadn't even meant to say these last words out loud, but John had heard him and was now tilting his chin up. _Provoked_. Slowly, he walked closer towards him.

"Oh, talk to me about naivety when you were the one who," he paused and swallowed, didn't want to say these next words, but kept going this time, "The one who just fakes his suicide and then comes back after two years, expecting me to still be there waiting."  
  
_Oh_. Surely, he had expected this to happen for several months, was even a bit surprised he hadn't heard something along those lines out of John's mouth much earlier, but right now he wasn't prepared to hear. A strange shower of emptiness washed over him that didn't leave behind ignorance but cut every thought and feeling from him, replaced it with grief, and he went quite pale. Yes, it had been stupid of him. To think he was that important to John that he would still be there.  
  
But John kept going still, and his voice grew louder. "No, don't you dare looking away now. Look at me! And talk to me about _giving up_! Because I had to give you up, Sherlock. I had to watch you fall down that building so many times in my head and give you up, and all those times-" He paused again, this time to take several deep breaths, pressing his eyes closed and opening them again. "And this is the worst. Because there were times where I felt like you could still be there, somewhere. But I never allowed myself to hope long enough because hope meant I couldn't give - up."  
  
Sherlock stared at him and blinked, biting his tongue. He was more than surprised to see him laughing then, suddenly, yes, turning his head to look into the living room but actually nowhere at all and huff out a laughter that sounded out of breath. "I suppose I never really did."  
  
He didn't know what to say other than, "You should have. You should."  
  
After this John was just smiling at him. The smile that was the exact opposite of a kind one. The dangerous one. "Fuck you, Sherlock Holmes. Fuck you if what you want to tell me is to get used to losing you again. I can't."  
  
"This is not about you."  
  
"The fuck did you just say to me?"  
  
Oh, he was swearing a lot. This wasn't good. He had already been yelled at and no, this conversation wasn't going well at all. They both seemed to have forgotten what they had even wanted the other one to know. What their message was. And maybe it had been supposed to go down like this. That if they only let out one tiny thing the small crack of insight about what they thought and felt would widen and tear open by the flood of all that was still unspoken, and all those unuttered words were heavily pressing against it. They still had a long way to go.  
  
"This is not about _you_ losing _me_! It never was! It was about keeping you alive!"  
  
"I don't under-"  
  
Sherlock couldn't keep his mouth shut now. He had already started. The unspoken, the truth, bubbled up beneath his ribcage. Tearing open the crack. "On the roof, three years ago, Moriarty made me choose between the life of my friends and my own, so I chose yours, and I ... died. And- and he died. That was never the plan, but I was done, they wanted me dead, so I killed Sherlock Holmes for two years and began to wonder who that man even was, and to this day I still do sometimes!"  
  
It was hard to breathe, and John seemed to experience the same lack of oxygen. There had to be something in the air therefore, going by the evidence. A vacuum perhaps.  
  
"But yes, it was naive of me to believe you would still be there and leave you for everyone to see how you are and expect them to not see what I see in you. People may be unobservant, John, but... but it was only a matter of time until someone would see _you_ , you and everything you are, even though I haven't even seen nearly everything I want to know about you, and that someone would keep you then, and I'm sorry that it had to be someone dangerous again, and I'm sorry for my naivety, for thinking you wouldn't miss the work we had, for being the selfish arsehole that wouldn't have you giving me up forever!"  
  
"Wait, you think-"  
  
"Even though you should! But you know who I am, and you know I never cared about anyone else, and I'm the unfeeling, unsociable psychopath that attracts more psychopaths, and now there's a new Moriarty and he won't stop and I can't do anything, so why won't you just leave already?!"  
  
„Oh, stop it with this psychopath/sociopath rubbish, Sherlock!“  
  
This threw Sherlock out of his monologue. Reality was starting to blend in again, slowly. He was breathing so hard that his chest felt tight from his lungs pumping and pumping, and the wound began to feel more and more like someone was poking around it with a tiny needle. His body was shivering, even though he wasn't cold at all, the throbbing had returned to his head and he didn't know what to do with his hands. They were shoved through his hair furiously, pulling at it and shaking too, then one of them found his lips and covered them with a half opened fist, as if to protect the words that had long left his mouth. That had long been perceived by John. And as much as it scared him, he knew that what he felt along with fear and fury was nothing other than relief at having told the truth.

He blinked in utter confusion about everything and nothing at all. "Why?"

John had to be going through a mutual frustration. The truth was never easy to tell. Neither were feelings. "Because it's not what you are and we both know it! I've seen you love and care, and in fact I think you care too much for your own good sometimes and fuck, you just said so many things to me and I," he huffed out his next breath as if in pain, "I can't-"

He pressed his hand to his forehead and for a moment looked so dangerously dizzy that Sherlock almost instinctively wanted to move forward to hold him upright.

"I just... I have to sit down."

Again, Sherlock wanted to help when John blindly felt for the chair behind him, but then he managed to sit down quickly. He was about to have a panic attack, Sherlock realised. Caused by the words John had just heard from him; those words all seemed to sink in now. Everything that he had said to him. The things he had never said before. Thoughts. Feelings. _Truth_.

Sherlock sat down opposite him, and John's head was in his hands. It felt so easy to understand him now. He felt just the same. A feeling of seeing his emotions hanging from the ceiling on strings he would rather cut off. Of having exposed too much and nothing at all. Of being, once again, just useless to him.

He waited.

John's voice sounded thin and worn when he spoke again. "You ... Moriarty wanted to kill me?"

"And Mrs Hudson. And Lestrade."

"You never told me why you did it. That you did it to protect-"

"I never-"

They went on interrupting each other's interruptions.

"And all the things you said," John continued. He dared to look at him now. A bit. "About me and." Sharp inhale. _Breathe, John._ "Do you really think ... You think I'm here for The Work? That that's why I'm still around?"  
  
"No." _You're here because you have no other place to stay, because I'm the one who needs you more than you need me and that's why I would always take you back._ But no. No, that's not what he wanted to think of John anymore. He had called him his best friend. Best friends liked each other for who they were. A surreal concept to be applied to Sherlock still.  
  
"Good. Good because I. You know, you _must_ know that ... I told you, remember? _One_ word. You could've..."  
  
He was still bitter. He was still hurt. Sherlock felt too guilty to know what to say.  
  
"But you couldn't, could you?"  
  
No. He supposed he couldn't have. They would have taken John out then and everything would've been for nothing. If he had lost John ... _Oh God._  
  
John closed his eyes, let out a bit of a pained moan (expressing just what Sherlock felt - an ache, a desire to escape this complicated web of sentiment).  
  
"Sorry, this is just a lot today. I think I'm gonna have to sleep over this."  
  
John stretched his hands over the table once more, this time touching one of Sherlock's. First, his fingers just barely touched his skin, a small tickle, before he slipped it under Sherlock's hand and held it in his own. Sherlock looked down at them together, tried to synchronise the visual with what he felt. _Incredible_. But John was right. For this to be the tip of today's emotional turmoil, it was almost too much. He thought John was searching for something grounding by taking his hand. A last resort to hold onto. Something that was alive. And Sherlock was, against all the odds and probabilities, still alive. Not for the first time he wondered how that could be.  
  
"We should," Sherlock said all of a sudden.  
  
"Hmh?"  
  
They both looked up to find each other's eyes, and they locked like two strong magnets. Too strong, almost. It was what always happened. What used to happen. They would look at each other and they would see fantastical odds they've never seen before.  
  
Sherlock tried to breathe. "Go to sleep, I mean. I think my bedroom would be a better choice this time." He later realised what this had sounded like. In other circumstances like a clear invitation for him to come to bed with Sherlock. Especially with him not taking his eyes off John.  
  
"Yes. Yes, you should rest some more," he agreed while looking as exhausted as a dormouse.  
  
That this moment would come one day where _Sherlock_ was to one to tell him, "No, you go, too. You look terrible."  
  
John let out an amused snort. "Thanks!"  
  
"No, I mean, you look-" The embarrassment came with not knowing what to call him now. John always looked sexy to him. (Especially when he was angry. So _especially_ these days.) Just that now there was the obvious layer of exhaustion on his face. But he could hardly explain this to him.  
  
"It's fine, I know what you mean. In fact, I thought the same thing when I looked in the mirror last time."  
  
He still held his hand and gave him a tired smile.  
  
"So." - "Ehm," they said at about the same moment. This resulted in shy smiles and them both looking at their half of the table in uncertainty.  
  
"Shall I escort you to your room?" John asked with a flirtatious chuckle.  
  
Now Sherlock was the one to give him a _look_. "Funny."  
  
"No, I'm. I'm serious."  
  
"Well, then. Please do." He noticed his voice was lowered to sound all smooth and match the nature of John's chuckle.  
  
After a short while of staying still to stare, maybe to doubt if this was really happening, John let go of his hand and got up. Sherlock followed, and together they made their way through the hallway to his bedroom. In front of the door to his room they stopped. John cleared his throat. Apparently he hadn't calculated his next move from here on. To be fair, Sherlock hadn't either, but he was clearly in a better position of the two of them, as he had an actual reason to be here. It was, after all, his bedroom. For him there was only so much as one other little problem: now he was really tempted to invite John to come to bed with him.  
  
"But you do feel better now? Physically, I mean?" He asked, being a doctor and all. "You want another painkiller?"  
  
Sherlock shook his head. The pain was beginning to come back, but he didn't want to dull his senses or mind all the time. "It's fine."  
  
"Alright." He seemed to trust him with this. Or at least respect it. Once again he cleared his throat. "Sleep tight then, I guess."  
  
Sherlock smiled (shyly again) before opening the door. "You too."  
  
When he closed the door again, he pressed his back against it. He had ignored it for a long while before. But now that he was on the other side of the door, and therefore alone again, he realised how badly he wanted to have John in his bed now. Not only for... that. This wouldn't work at the moment anyway, with his injury still troubling him, no, that wouldn't be wise. No, there were better reasons, nobler reasons. He would just need to touch him. Just feel his warmth. Smell him. And then, the next day, maybe his smell would still cling to the pillows for a while longer.  
  
He was so damn desperate. And as he slipped beneath the sheets and pressed a pillow on his head against the daylight shining through the curtains, he wondered if he would manage to fall asleep soundly ever again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Being As An Ocean - We Drag The Dead On Leashes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8Npz4vHgXc)
> 
>   _And it seems we've been thrown into an endless cycle_  
>  _Of pain and suffering_  
>  _But if we learn to let go_  
>  _We don't have to play out this tragedy_  
>  _Forgive the things you hate in yourself_  
>  _So that you might be grace to someone else_


	10. The Faith to Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had come so far. It had always been the smallest steps that they had failed to take.

Clouds closed the warm, tender sky on a refreshingly mild evening. If the sun could feel anything – apart from the own glowing core, the pure heat – would it feel the cold? Would it feel the wetness as sun and water touched each other at the end of the horizon? The sound of ice and fire collapsing into each other, a relishing, calming _zsssh_ that would carry the daylight away? Or would it be just quiet, so the sun could suffer in silence? _Suffer in silence?_ Sherlock smiled bitterly. There was no such thing. Far away they were, but ocean remained cold at this time of day and sun will always be on fire. _Contrast_. World was full of them, but at the same time nothing that currently existed was any different from each other at all. Difference emerges as an illusion for the human's brain to keep itself from _exploding_.  
  
The sand was cooling down, surely enjoying its break from the hot temperature. The whole island was cooling down in the smooth dawn that gave away what would follow. Night would. Night would always follow. And it made so much sense. If the world was ending and universes and stars would break away and fall from the sky, darkness would be following. Eternal night. No one would interpret it differently, as all the mornings and noons and evenings are not dark and entire enough in the metaphor. Not in a human's brain. Oh, and how our brains devour a good metaphor! Keeps them from _exploding._  
  
Sherlock could not see the sun, nor the waves. Neither the sky, nor the ocean. He could not feel the cold, nor the warmth. And if he was honest with himself, he could not care less. What he did see was dark in comparison, what he heard was loud and what he smelled was strong ethanol, which left a bittersweet taste of oblivion.  
  
He was clearly pitying himself and he did not like that at all. The whole sitaution in itself did feel a little surreal. Drinking brought a sense of _déjà vu_ with it. Something was odd. But as it was the matter with _déjà vus_ , the odd feeling would say goodbye to him as soon as it had greeted. He knew that he wasn't fine. Although judging by the ridiculously uncommon choice to visit a pub as full and as annoying, due to the people around him of course, and to drown his sorrow in alcohol not being _fine_ may be a bit of a mild understatement. Sherlock remembered feeling sick or lonely. Or both. But he had no idea where it came from. No idea whatsoever. It was like he had just entered a story with an open beginning.

People were insufferable. Everyone around him seemed to have the time of their life. In reality, though, they all came here for the same purpose; to forget about their sad lives, which (let's be honest here) usually never worked. Everyone yelling and fistfighting to distract themselves from the real problems. And in a way, at least that worked. Probably because they were not that bright. Oh, what a blessing must it be these days - being stupid, not having to think things through billions of times. A burden they had cursed Sherlock with instead.  
  
He gulped down a big swallow of strong tasting liquid. He felt the burning sensation just moments after it had cooled his mouth, only to fool him a little. But he had known what would come, he had hoped for the wonderful burn that would follow afterwards, and he enjoyed it. He enjoyed the feeling of fire starting to build up in his throat, the smooth warmth that he could pretend would be energy. But it wasn't. Soon enough the sensation was gone again. So it had not been enough. He hadn't forgotten what he wanted to forget, even if he didn't remember what that would be. Somehow he knew that this could not be his reality, but it felt so strong and near and perhaps he liked it. It made him suffer anyway, but down here he couldn't remember why.  
  
A suspiciously familiar voice broke the silence that was only in his head so far. Sherlock may have set down the glass of rum a little too hard, so that a sip of its content spilled on his hand, and he wanted to swear. But he never swore. The voice called his name again. It seemed to him to be the most suspicious reason to question this world. Because what was _she_ doing here?  
  
"Mr Holmes!"

The look on his face must have displayed his surprise. Apparently, he gaped.

"Oh, you can close your pretty little mouth for me."

Still, he hadn't made a move after standing up from his chair to protect himself from … what? Inferiority?

"I know. I look stunning, don't you think? Although, to this day I still don't know if you rather prefered me in my _battle dress_."

Irene Adler was walking around the wooden table, dressed in a white shirt with puffy long sleeves, a corset in dark red that pushed up her breasts, and she was wearing a long coat that looked a lot like Sherlock's own.

"Have you been waiting to have dinner with me, Mr Holmes?" she asked, innocently sweet. "Or am I supposed to say Captain now?"

She grabbed a chair, placed it next to him and sat down, then indicated for him to sit down again as well.

"What do you want?" Sherlock snapped back. Her presence made him insecure. She shouldn't be here.

"Oh, _Sherlock_." Her response sounded like pity. He hated pity. "I think we both know by now why I am here. Why I became a part of your life."

"For a small period of time," Sherlock corrected sharply.

Irene frowned at him in a way that suggested amusement. "And yet, here we are again."

"You haven't answered my question." He was trying to look around unobtrusively to search for an escape, but to do so and not look nervous at the same time was sheer impossible. Especially in the presence of the woman who beat him.

"I don't have to." She reached out to put a hand to his arm. "What have I always wanted, Sherlock? During our time?"

Irene tried to intimidate him. He knew it. With her arm and the... _time_. Time, what time? They were enemies. Their relationship would always remain the same.

"My attention," he suggested.

"Your heart," she corrected, moving ever closer, unsettling so, to now put her hand over the spot where she believed his heart to be. Sherlock was shoked into motionlessness. He could feel how someone, _somewhere_ , wanted to tell him something. Otherwise he would be able to move. Wouldn't he?

There was the beginning of a mocking laugh breathing out of his nose. "Why is everyone still convinced there was such a thing as that in me?"

Irene rolled her eyes. Even she knew when he was being especially dramatic now. Fantastic. "No, stop playing the game for once."

"I'm not the one who-"

But she interrupted him with a kiss to his cheek. "Shhh. Listen to me. Listen to what I'm trying to tell you." And hadn't she been wearing clothes just minutes ago? Now all she was left with to cover her upper body was the tight corset and the coat.

"I couldn't get into your heart because I'm not the one with the key. You know what key I mean, Sherlock, do you not?"

He did. The key that would lead to _the treasure_. And he couldn't help but betray his attempts to be cold and reasonable in this strange conversation. He knew his face had changed to interest and eagerness. Of course The Woman had to pick up on that immediately. Her hand disappeared in a place – probably somewhere between her breasts, he assumed – to take out a scrap of cloth. She spread it out on the table next to his glass, and smoothed it down with fingers and red painted nails for him to see. Not that there would be much to see. Only the brown piece of cloth, and drawn onto it was the minimalist form of something that looked a bit like an arrow but was, inmistakably, a key.

"Where did you get that?" Sherlock wondered out loud.

"Oh, I have my sources."

Almost on instinct there was the thought of Moriarty coming to Sherlock's brain and remained there for a while to do some damage to his sanity, but with one last big gulp of burning liquid he managed to drive him away. Moriarty couldn't have the key. Not to mention his obvious death, which he had witnessed with his own eyes (would never forget the scene this had been), he just couldn't be the one to hold so much power. It would be the end of them all.

"Where can I find it?"

Irene gave him a smile of approval, probably at him for always asking the right question. And he just had to feel a little bit of pride at that subtle praise, being the self-conscious man that he was, sadly. By now she was only just wearing his coat and nothing else. But even that was already beginning to fade, this time finally with him being able to watch this process. He didn't even fancy seeing her like this, he was just curious as to what exactly was happening to her. She was intimidating his personal space once more, her painted lips tickling his ear as she whispered.

"You shall have to go deeper."

With that she stood up and walked backwards. Like a ghost she walked without moving her legs, without being there at all (and Sherlock was already doubting that she had ever been there at all), through the crowd, the yelling, the fistfights. There wasn't much more he could understand. But one last thing was still able to get through to him and him alone.

"What I've always wanted for you, Mr Holmes. For you two to have dinner."

 

***

 

John woke up without knowing if he had really been sleeping or just been caught up in a very deep and confusing bunch of thoughts. As he checked his phone for the time, he let out a telling grunt.  
  
_4:23 p.m._  
  
He had slept for approximately thirty five minutes, if you could call it that. The bit of lying in bed that had actually been spent sleeping instead of rolling from one side to the other or thinking about Sherlock Holmes felt like barely one quarter of the time that had passed.  
  
_Sherlock Holmes_. How many hours of his life he had already (what, wasted? No, definitely not wasted) _used_ to think about the man that was currently lying just one floor below and probably fast asleep, unlike himself. So close to him now. So safe and secure. Even though it still felt too far away. John still felt like he couldn't protect him in a way that he would deserve.  
  
He knew this man wasn't a helpless child. He knew how to fight, yes, even how to handle a sword, and had certainly a whole bunch of other skills John did neither know of nor would be likely to ever achieve himself. Yet, to have Sherlock back here again just where he belonged didn't feel real. Roughly one year had passed by now, and he had yet to get used to Sherlock being alive. Probably because now he was back at Baker Street with him, finally, but everything else around them had changed. As nice an idea as it was, the life they lived in 221B wasn't exclusive. And these walls couldn't stop time from flying away.  
  
After the conversation they had (again, if you could call it that) the wounds felt, well, not reopened, but more like what happened to Sherlock's gunshot wound. Rather than having been torn open again, the process of healing was simply interrupted and set back a little by this convulsion he had endured. Right now John was reminded of the pain of loss, the pain of heartbreak, but also made room for a new perspective that allowed him to answer some questions. John had taught himself to live with the weight of them instead of getting them out of his system.  
  
Looking into another way decreased his internalised anger and sorrow. Maybe Sherlock didn't think he wasn't trustworthy. Maybe Sherlock had just been scared, just like he was himself. And now with this new unknown threat that lingered in the dark around them... John knew that they would only win this time if they fought it together. He couldn't live without Sherlock anymore. He never wanted to go back to a life without him. All those recent events had highlighted his desires, put them out there and in the spotlight, to have him by his side and closer.  
  
But it weren't his thoughts that drove him out of bed. His legs found their way out from under the covers and then his feet touched the floorboards. Walking out of his room he doubted more and more that he should have slept at all, odd as it was that it was just the middle of the day. In a few hours the sun would go down again.  
  
John was coming down the stairs and was greeted by the warm embrace of 221B all around him. How good it felt to be back here again. He never should have left. It had been inevitable back then, to leave these rooms if he wanted to save himself from drowning in those storms of sorrow. Dust was whirling up in the light shining through the long curtains. Looking through the room over to the other side, his eyes fell on Sherlock.   
  
He was standing next to John's chair, looking a bit out of place and at the same time as if he was only a part of this painting the nostalgia in his head had painted. _A piece of art_. They both looked a little surprised to find the other one here, awake and aroused by something not quite possible to name. Sherlock and John just looked at each other, already saying so much more than words could. He thought his heart was standing still. It beat again when he was taking a step forward. Sherlock followed suit, closer and closer, and soon there was only one step left until they would have touched, body to body, face to face.  
  
"Hi," John whispered.  
  
"Hi."

"Couldn't sleep?"

Sherlock shook his head.

"Me neither."

For a while they simply looked at each other in undisguised wonder. _They knew_. There was so much that had happened between them, so much over the years and the last few days. Signs, clear signs, that there was no other way but to keep the other one as close as possible. And there could only be one reason as to why that seemed so essential.

When John made himself taller to reach up to that pretty face, Sherlock flinched ever so slightly. He appeared to be so shocked that he, of all people, didn't know what to do. John tried not to view that as a rejection, for he would have chickened out of this situation and barricaded himself in his room forever, probably. His heart was pounding like mad, but when his eyes fell down to Sherlock's throat (beautiful, long, freckled) and he watched his carotid atery jump and jump and jump, he realised he wasn't the only one. Then he saw Sherlock's Adam's apple bob as he swallowed heavily, and he felt his legs weaken for a second. This _bloody_ man. The love of his life. And he was just as nervous as he was. A good sign?

"John. You have a wife," he croaked out, voice thick with sleep and tightness. There was so much heat coming from him, John noted, and he even found himself wondering which of the _thump-thump-thumps_ he heard were coming from him and which from Sherlock.

He smiled at his objection. This was just so him. Trying to solve this with logic, trying to remind John of his moral principles. Not realising how he was actually exclusively acting on the basis of moral principles.

"And you're married to your work."

Again, Sherlock shook his head and blinked in confusion. "Not anymore."

There was a content little hum coming from the back of John's throat as he placed his hands on both of Sherlock's shoulders, drew himself up to his maximum height (while standing on his tip-toes) and leant in.

"Hmh. Exactly."

The last thing he saw was Sherlock blinking once more, and blinking his eyes closed this time, before he took away that little gap of distance between them and one pair of lips touched the other.

_They kissed._

The feeling was light and unreal, like a feather tickling skin, but even this little touch made their blood boil and electricity was tingling through their nerve cells. It was so much and, as it so often was, not enough at all. John's hands wandered to the back of Sherlock's head to hold him closer, and their bodies were now pressed against each other, moving with each other. As his hands were slowly fondling Sherlock's curls (so soft), they were breathing heavily into each other's mouths. Then one of them (or both – it didn't matter anymore) pushed forward again, and now the kiss lost some of its sweet innocence.

Just in the afternoon, in the middle of the living room, in their pyjamas they stood there, holding each other. _Kissing_. John had sunk down to his feet by now, pulling Sherlock down with him and giving him so many kisses, one melting into another as soon as the other had ended, so that it became neverending. They pushed and pulled, pressed into soft lips like this was their very own game and no one cared who would win. Suddenly, John started grinning so hard that he almost had to break the chain of kisses to let out a bunch of relieved laughter that bubbled up within him. Instead he decided to just let Sherlock feel what he felt, smiling against him until Sherlock did the same. It was possibly the most perfect moment in his entire life.

He acted on instinct now, his brain had turned itself off to give its blessing to his heart. Sherlock's lips were dangerously addictive, he found, and soon just kissing them didn't seem to be enough. Hell, none of this was enough, he had waited for this moment for years. Or maybe even his whole life. It was what all those stories told you to want from the earliest age on, what, in movies and books, brought people back from the dead or saved entire worlds. The power of love, and sometimes, the power of a kiss from the love of your life. The one couple whose love could not be stopped by death and evil. The one couple that mattered. They had been through it all.

When John pulled back from their latest kiss and Sherlock pushed back to meet him again, he could hear him gasp. John darted his tongue out, now slowly licking against the pink skin of Sherlock's lower lip. It tasted so much like him, and even though there was no way he could possibly know the taste of _him_ he knew that he had always craved it. The tip of his tongue was brushing against the spot where Sherlock's lips met, a tiny request for permission that Sherlock gave to him as soon as he understood. He wondered, briefly, if the detective had ever done this before. Not that it mattered now. But he just couldn't decide if the slow opening of his mouth to let John in, the initial reluctance as John's tongue found his, the hesistance with which he now finally wrapped his arms around his back, spoke of shyness, inexperience or disbelief.

John could feel his own bit of disbelief. His stomach fluttered, his fingers were shaking against Sherlock's warm scalp, and his heart pounded like it was about to break out of his chest and run away from this overload of feelings he could not even begin to grasp. _He was in love_. They kissed and kissed until the entire living room seemed to be filled with the noises they let their lips and tongues make sliding against each other, and the desperation found voice through their mouths. Moans and whimpers from the back of their throats. Holding onto each other until they were out of breath and were given a little more faith to believe.

He noticed his legs were shaking. His head found comfort on Sherlock's shoulder as he moved his hands to grasp the back of his washed-out shirt, and he felt like he was breathing him in. He was _so_ warm, they were both panting. There was this spell flying around the room; a spell that would forbid any of them to speak just yet. This just wasn't something to be talked about right now, and they wouldn't have known how to start. What John did know, though, was that he was tired. So very tired. Not just from lack of sleep and nerves.

He drew back and took one of Sherlock's hands without uttering a word. Sherlock willingly followed him through the kitchen, then the hallway, past the bathroom door and finally through the door of his own bedroom. They had come so far. It had always been the smallest steps that they had failed to take.

John sunk down to sit on the double bed without taking his eyes off the beauty that was Sherlock Holmes, the long fingers he had envied the violin for being touched by now interlaced with his own. And the way he looked at him, _my God!_ As if John was his very own answer to the universe. His hair was a mess without the product in it (and from John's fingers, he reminded himself and felt a thrill rush through him). His lips were swollen and scarlet from a thousand shared kisses, and his whole appearance seemed to be glowing almost as brightly as his eyes were shining from joy. This man personified sheer brilliance and he just couldn't hold back the burning desire to feel it through his body.

With their still intertwined fingers he pulled him down to him. There was a fire in Sherlock's eyes you only got to see when he was on a scent to solve a murder as he was crawling on top of him, and perhaps it did say a lot about John that he had never felt that incredibly turned on by something as simple. He was lying on top of him as their mouths found each other again to keep on kissing and kissing and kissing the time away.

 

John woke up with butterflies in his stomach, and it took him a while to remember why that was. But when he did (oh, the kissing, so much kissing!) he couldn't be sure he had not only been dreaming again. Getting to wake up next to Sherlock Holmes, the world's only consulting detective, occasionally sulking school boy and, undeniably to him, the most beautiful man alive, felt even too much just thinking about, too scandalous or juvenile, because it would be so damn perfect. It was almost scary.  
  
But John dared then, was tired enough of being scared, and turned around to face his ... his what? Lover? Boyfriend? Partner in all aspects? He had never had a boyfriend before, not one he could've call that, at least. Of course, there had been incidents and there had been men, but whatever they were to one another would always stay behind closed curtains. Well, not this time.  
  
The other side of the bed was empty.  
  
Alright. Fine. Admittedly, it was probably neither of those things and rather a bit not good. So it had only been a dream after all. But then he reconsidered. The other side was still warm, the covers drawn back. If he deduced all of this logically, someone else had certainly slept in here not too long ago. Then there was the fact that he was lying in _Sherlock's_ bed, which was located in _Sherlock's_ room. His pillow still smelled of him.  
  
Had his consulting detective gotten cold feet and fled the scene?  
  
John decided not to draw conclusions without all the facts, as Sherlock had told him often. God, his life was so caught up in this marvel of a man. He never wanted it to end. Not now that he had finally had him. A real taste of those lips, felt the softness of skin wrapped around muscle and bones and genius. The sight of white crumpled linen on an empty mattress would never feel right to him again.  
  
The clock on the bedside table displayed the numbers 7:21. The sun would rise soon, if it hadn't already. Frankly, they had gotten more than enough sleep, but nothing they didn't deserve after that dreadful week that they have had. Sherlock had taken so much damage, so much pain in the last few months alone that it almost felt ludicrous. A vicious joke of the universe. The wedding, the gunshot, the poison, and then, only yesterday, was it really?, he had almost lost his life again. It was really all pointing, and pointing clearly, in the same horrible direction. James Moriarty had promised it many years ago. _Burn the heart out of you_. He had seen how scared Sherlock had been after reading that poem.  _Burn up._ _You will never be chosen_. It was no wonder Sherlock had fled.  
  
John got out of bed and went to the loo. When he stepped out on the hallway, he saw him there. His silhouette stood out against the creeping rays of the rising sun, the curve of his back only one part of his body that John would love to kiss, all the way down and up again. He had never not admired his body, but to do so without the draining feeling of being denied the chance to ever touch opened up a whole new world to him.  
  
He was smoking. The curling twine flying above his head revealed it, as well as the scent of smothered tobacco. If Sherlock knew he was watching him (and let's be honest, he would) he didn't say anything. Just stood there, daring to look like an ancient piece one would find in a museum, too holy to touch, sucking up all the energy in the room with scarlet lips and blowing it out again like a dragon.

John walked towards him, slowly, softly on bare feet, until he was standing next to him. He didn't dare touching him yet, waited for Sherlock to make that step. The smell of his smothering cigarette filled his nostrils; a smell he had always disliked and, as a doctor and as a friend of a former drug addict, ever since associated with some form of slow death, blackening lungs and burning money. But now, most curiously, he found he was quite fine with it.

They stood there in silence while the cigarette started to function as a countdown - the smaller it became, the closer was the inevitable truth they hadn't talked about yet. Suddenly, Sherlock blew one last cloud against the window and sighed as if in nostalgia, then pushed the fag out in the ashtray on the table next to him. John recognised it. It was the ashtray Sherlock had stolen for him out of Buckingham Palace. That idiot had always loved to get himself in trouble. Sometimes only to make John laugh. And now that he thought about it, maybe his attraction and returned feelings for him hadn't come to such a surprise after all.

"Are you alright?"

" _Me_?"

Sherlock looked at him.

"Why wouldn't I be alright?" John almost laughed at the absurdity of Sherlock's question.

He opened his mouth to speak, but out came only a sigh.

John nodded in agreement. "Too much too soon?" He felt like he hadn't talked to him in forever.

Sherlock swallowed. "Not nearly enough."

They watched the sun rise over London. It was unusually quiet around this time of day. Birds could be heard chirping from the rooftops. They sounded so joyful, not a worry in the world concerning them more than sheer existence itself. _Freedom_. But why, John thought quite thoughtlessly, shouldn't he and Sherlock be allowed to live a life like this? One of freedom and without concerns. Not for long, but for once.

Sherlock's head snapped as he looked at his hand as John took it in his, and then the other one as well. They both felt his pulse throb in between them as though John had taken his heart in his hands. Their eyes met, and it made the universe a little more okay.

"We'll be fi-"

"I love you."

The words slipped out from between Sherlock's lips so quickly that for the fraction of a second John was sure he had just punched him right in his solar plexus. Sherlock looked surprised himself, blinking down at John in curious fascination, as if wondering if they had both just heard what he had said in his rough morning rumble and yet utterly comprehensible.

John stared up at him in a mutual fascination for a few moments more, feeling the strong beating of his heart in his very throat, before he decided that yes, he should definitely kiss him again. Why had he waited so long even? It's been hours! He drew Sherlock closer by his hands, but then just wrapped his arms around his neck and ran his fingers through his hair like yesterday, pulling him down until their lips would meet. The kiss deepened quickly, and when John's tongue met Sherlock's he heard a whimper that didn't sound like him at all and embraced it by pulling back and going in for another kiss.

They stood there in the window frame for all the world to see, curtains drawn wide open as the sun was going up between them. From the right angle it looked like the fire ball was just between their lips when a kiss ended and they would swallow it wholly and happily when another began. This kind of freedom, this amount of sheer and terrifyingly wonderful not-knowing of what would come next was life changing. So new and so hard to believe. But they were still kissing while the sun rose through the clouds of a new day breaking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About. Damn. Time.  
> (Get ready for some domestic fluff. The boys really do deserve it.)
> 
> Today's Dream:  
> [The Used - In A Needle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASo6RmXJmdQ)
> 
> _I let you in, you knock me out,_   
>  _No air that's left for breathing._   
>  _Poison as kisses from your mouth,_   
>  _That leave me so addicted._
> 
> _Yeah you're a part of me,_   
>  _A part I cannot let go._   
>  _Your love's so poisoning._   
>  _Get down, is this a dream?_   
>  _Is there no way to wake up?_


	11. Loverboy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After some time of silent and accompanied eating, John's quiet voice broke the ice of tense uncertainties. "Have you ever been in love?"
> 
> Sherlock looked past him, seeming a bit shy and pink there, clearly thinking about one or multiple events of his own past. John knew he shouldn't be curious (or jealous), but he could not help it.
> 
> But then Sherlock said, "No. Not like that, no. Not like this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: It's just feelings, fluff and smut in here. Don't say I didn't warn you.

They smiled as they ate breakfast. For no particular reason, just for most of the time that they sat on the table. Sometimes their eyes would meet at the same time, and their smiles would broaden until they could tear their gazes away and lower their heads to look at their food. Boring breakfast food on a lazy morning with dashing Sherlock Holmes. Everything John could ever wish for.

"What term do I use now?" John asked before he took a bite of toast.

"Hmmh." Sherlock thought that over a little. "Boyfriend?"

John couldn't help but grin and raise his brows at that. It sounded so simple and, well, young for what they were. Something without much consequence.

"What?" Sherlock asked with a smile that gave him away. "Someone told me once this is what real people have in their real lives."

He grinned so hard at that his face starting hurting. "Oh, really?"

"Yeah, you know … People they like, people they don't like. People they like... more?" His foot brushed John's ankle under the table. The movement seemed so forbidden and dangerous. He liked it a lot.

"Do you like boyfriend then?" He was just in such a flirtatious mood.

"Do _you_ like it?"

"Hmh, let's see." Now John was the one pretending to think. "What else is there that silly couples call each other?"

"Darling?"

"Babe."

"Greg."

"Hey, you actually got his name right."

"Whose name?"

John sighed. He still couldn't tell if Sherlock was taking the piss out of him with that one.

"Sweetheart."

"Sprouse."

"Lovemonkey." John chuckled at Sherlock's frown. Yes, he had heard someone using that petname before. Sherlock overthought his next choice.

" _Lover._ " It sounded so interesting on his tongue. He seemed to be trying it out before eating his toast.

"Well, yes, but we haven't actually-" He stopped himself. Perhaps that was going too far too soon. None of them was ready to have that kind of conversation just yet. John didn't even know if Sherlock did do … anything.

"Is that a necessary requirement?" Sherlock asked, voice suddenly smaller. He wasn't quite sure where he was getting at with that question. "I mean, the word love is in the name, and even if two people haven't gone further yet..."

 _Yet_. Did he really say that? They both looked at each other in heated anticipation, but it faded quickly when no one dared to comment on it.

After some time of silent and accompanied eating, John's quiet voice broke the ice of tense uncertainties. "Have you ever been in love?"

Sherlock looked past him, seeming a bit shy and pink there, clearly thinking about one or multiple events of his own past. John knew he shouldn't be curious (or jealous), but he could not help it.

But then Sherlock said, "No. Not like that, no. Not like this."

John wanted to ask what he meant by _this,_ and what he did and did not include, when suddenly the question was thrown back at him.

"Have you ever been in love?"

He swallowed. "Like the way I am with you?"

One could pinpoint the exact moment Sherlock's clear blue eyes blew wide open, the moment his heart stood still. As in his very heart he knew it, it was obvious, but hearing it was something else completely.

"A bit. Once."

"Unhappy." Sherlock couldn't stop the robotic deduction. "More than five years ago. In the military."

"Yeah, thanks for reading that out of me yourself."

Oh God, he should not have said that. Sherlock looked so vulnerable right now, as if he wanted so hard to do this right, to be polite and decent and the way John had not even fallen for because it was not who he was, and feeling like he had disappointed him.

"I-"

"It's alright." John assured him. "Can you deduce who? You've met him."

Something visibly clicked in Sherlock's brain. "Major Sholto."

"It was never easy. Very secret, of course. But it was just not … not the time, nor the place, nor … it never could've worked out for long, James and I."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be." John stretched his hand out, placed it on top of Sherlock's over the kitchen table. "I'm certainly not. Everything I did has somehow brought me to you, and that's-" His chest got tighter with emotions he had neither asked for nor expected to happen to him with such impact, such power. "I will never be sorry for that."

Their eyes locked, and they both smiled at each other knowingly. They just knew. Whatever it was there was to know, they felt it.

"So what about... Mary?"

John shook his head. "Not comparable at all. She was good enough for pulling me out of that messy state I was in, but … That sounds cruel now, but no, it actually doesn't, considering she shot you and lied to me since I first met her."

_Wait a minute. Mary!_

Talking about her now felt so highly surreal. He hadn't even thought about her for days. Not since that message of her that had almost killed him, literally as he came close to getting run over by a car, to be precise. It seemed so wrong to do this now, to talk to Sherlock about this person. Mary wasn't their friend anymore, he couldn't even know if she had ever considered Sherlock to be a friend at all, and technically, Sherlock was his affair now. He hated this already. He would have never declared Sherlock as something so scandalous, so shameful as an _affair_. Yes, there was shame in the term. There was secrecy and hiding and keeping a relationship from the rest of the world, which was just the complete opposite of what he wanted to do now. How could he hide this man? This magnificent creature who, what, loved him? Hiding this was simply not an option here. Everyone he would pass on the street would be able to read it off his face.

If anything, Mary was this. Scandalous. Shameful. He didn't even want to look at her again, afraid her face would remind him of everything she had done, every little lie she might have told, every time she had listened to his grief and his sorrow and couldn't have cared less, for all he knew. It was a disgusting thought, and he felt like a dumb fool for ever having trusted her. Her smile would never be pretty or sweet to him again. It had been fake from the very start.

Which was exactly why he had to tell Sherlock. Because he was his other half now (always had been, if he thought back to where they started), his significant other. He wouldn't keep secrets from him. Sherlock was so much more than the affair in a broken and fake marriage. He _loved_ him.

"Sherlock, I- I forgot to tell you. There was just no time, I haven't really thought about it myself … You remember a few days ago when I came back and you nearly burnt the flat down with the bin?"

Sherlock nodded, but avoided looking him in the eyes.

"Well, Mary … She had an ultra sound that day. That's why I decided not to go to the clinic. I couldn't bear the thought of seeing her."

That seemed to surprise Sherlock. He looked up at him and blinked a few times. "Why?"

"I … Are you really asking me that?" John felt the need to make this clear. "I don't want this person in my life anymore! There never was a Mary Morstan, there certainly isn't a Mary Watson. And to think about her carrying my child … It's just too much for me right now."

Sherlock squeezed John's hand to let him know he was there for him. "Did she try to contact you again?"

John shook his head. "She hasn't texted me since then, since I haven't answered. I don't think I want her to."

He looked back at him for long seconds. "I'm glad," he whispered.

There was a long pause, which John spent on his mind, letting some darker thoughts through his consciousness. Along with Mary came the worrying, the insecurities, the danger in their joint lives. As nice a world as that would be, they were not safe. And when he looked up into Sherlock's sky blue eyes, he knew that he was aware of that, too. "I'm sorry to bring that up now," he spoke quietly, "but I need the truth of it. The last case. The poem. There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?"

Sherlock didn't speak after this for a painfully long time. The suspense was what got to John the most. The feeling of hanging in the air and not knowing what would happen, unaware of what was really going on. Waiting for Sherlock to catch and ground him, or to be swallowed by the depths of the unknown.

"It's his setup. Or theirs, I can't know at this point. That's the thing John, I don't actually know anything. Anything of relevance, anything that could help us."

"Alright, Sherlock, it's alright. Slow down a bit there. Who? Who do you think is doing all this?"

They were staring at each other, trying to find something to hold onto in this chaos of thoughts and fears. "You were right. It's all meant for me. To destroy me. Just like _he_ always wanted."

"So you … You think it's a new Moriarty?"

"Well, it can't be him. It- it can't be. He's dead. I saw him die with my own eyes. A copy cat is also unlikely. Someone who has just followed the story in the media wouldn't know the code he had for me."  
  
"Code?"  
  
"The initials used on the poem. These weren't initials. I.O.U. The letters literally translate to-"  
  
"I owe you," John realised with a shaking breath. Of course. _Of course_. Everything began to make sense now. Sherlock's strange behaviour around the crime scenes, the fear in his eyes. He only wished he had come to him earlier instead of burying it inside of him, trying to solve it all by himself.  
  
"He used to say that to me," Sherlock continued. " _I owe you a fall_." The way he said these words was awestruck and hushed, as if he was afraid someone might hear him and declare it blasphemy. A shiver ran down his spine as he remembered _everything_ , making his bottom lip tremble ever so slightly.

"But he won't, Sherlock. Whatever it is now, I will catch you this time. Alright?"

There was a moment, a moment filled with the noises of traffic outside, the cars driving over wet pavement, a clock ticking somewhere in the distance, before Sherlock finally nodded. He looked like he wanted to believe it. Like a small part of his brain wanted to lull him into that illusion, telling him, _maybe it was true. Maybe it could be alright for once_. The more they would both tell themselves so, the more its potential was able to grow. The potential of becoming the truth.

"Alright."

After some moments spent in mutual but mellow silence, John's brain tried to distract itself by picking up on another thought. It was something he hoped could lighten the mood again, but it was possible that his own curiosity had pushed him to ask this before he could really think it through.

"You said you haven't been in love like this. Was it just... men so far?"

At this Sherlock's face changed (and with it the mood around them, fortunately) into a smug expression and a frown. "John, if what you're asking me is if I'm solely attracted to the same sex, then the answer is yes. Exclusively men so far. Few men."

John thought he could feel himself blush a bit. He didn't know how this had drifted into _that_ kind of conversation from one moment to the next, but he felt surprisingly more at ease with this topic change than he would have under different circumstances.

"Alright. Good. Girlfriends are not your area, I remember." A mad grin was beginning to creep on his face. This was insane. They had really made it to this point. They were really talking about this.

Sherlock bit his lip in a shy but obviously seductive way that made John want to grab him by his shirt, pull him over the table and kiss him. Hard.

"Then you might also remember that I never said anything about boyfriends..."

It took them merely five seconds before they broke into helpless giggles that men their age really shouldn't participate in. This was honestly ridiculous. How had it taken them so long to realise how madly and head-over-heels in love they were with each other?

The giggling finally wore off, and John, breathlessly, babbled out, "I don't think I care much."

"Oh, you mean you're finally referring to your obvious traits of bisexuality?"

"My- Sherlock!" But John couldn't even be upset about it. It was his job to know that about him as well, he figured.

"It wasn't a particularly hard deduction."

"Oh, but if you knew that about me, it took you an embarrassingly long time to observe my enormous attraction to you, don't you think?"

He thought he had just witnessed Sherlock's cheeks colouring in front of him. "I will admit I could've seen this sooner. Since you're apparently also attracted to people who get a lot of death threats," he joked shyly. The joke did have some raw edges and ugly truths to it. "Sorry," he added while looking away.

But John, who had first bit his lip in discomfort, suddenly started laughing. Just so. Light-hearted, along the fine line of hysteria, but still somewhat cheerful. "You know what?" he asked in a huff.

Sherlock tilted his head.

"I think I am. I think that's just fine. What would our lives be without death threats, Sherlock?"

And then, they were both laughing, putting everything into it. The pain, the sadness, the disbelief at finally having made it this far and being here, and being _them_. This could just be the start of something dangerously wonderful.

 

***

 

The following weeks they spent together were very hard to put in words, and yet, at the same time, such a simple way of living. They loved each other to bits. Were hardly ever apart. They started sleeping in the same bed together every night - Sherlock's was far more comfortable, especially with him in it - and on most days John woke up with an octopus wrapped around him. A lovely feeling, really, when said octopus was warm, had the softest skin and was generally speaking just incredibly sexy. In the mornings they kissed and stayed in bed for half an hour at least, but they never went further than this. Still, the lazy mornings with Sherlock Holmes were pure bliss. John didn't think he had ever been so lovestruck in a way he would roll eyes at if he witnessed this kind of behaviour as an outsider. And Sherlock was just … he was such a romantic, it was almost scary.

He made sure John had his tea - milk, no sugar - before he stumbled out of the bathroom, he smiled sweetly at him every time John looked up from reading the papers. When he sat on his microscope for one of his gross experiments on bacteria or bugs or bloody eyeballs, he would turn his head in John's direction without looking at him as he walked by, this being his nonverbal way of asking to be kissed. Every time John could get him to close his eyes regardless, once their lips had met and greeted each other with warmth and softness, he would feel a bit proud of himself.

If Sherlock had an epiphany when solving a particularly difficult thing, he would make the most delicious noises (that John could now fully enjoy without denial) and kiss him so hard that it left John breathless and in disbelief because this was the new life they shared now, this was a brand new way to be part of Sherlock's genius, and John had immediately gotten addicted to it.

There was not a single case on for quite a while, and at first John was worried that Sherlock would get bored by just being more or less stuck at home with him. But to his own surprise he didn't show any signs of boredom. No shooting at walls, no raging outbreaks in which he searched for confrontation to keep his racing mind at bay, no sliding back into drug abuse (thank God!) and he had gotten back to no more than two cigarettes a day. In fact, it seemed that kissing was his new drug now, and this did no harm apart from raising the temperature in the room, making their heads lighter and their hearts pound stronger. John didn't even mind kissing him after smoking anymore. Sure, it wasn't the most pleasant taste, but it felt somewhat as if Sherlock was continuing to break an unspoken law between them when he had a cigarette, and John so enjoyed when he misbehaved. The amount of time he spent being turned on by this man was frankly ridiculous, and more than frustrating at times, as it still felt like going further would be going too far yet.

Sherlock cuddled up next to John in the evening and they watched telly together. Sherlock despised watching telly. He had rarely seen him being so much at ease when watching a reality show. (Crap telly, yes, he had fallen back into a habit of watching that, but he enjoyed Sherlock's remarks far too much.) They were both so content in those moments that Sherlock didn't even yell - there was just no reason to get any steam off - but instead murmured his deductions about everyone on screen right in his ear, the rumbling in his voice sensible through his body. John found it hard to concentrate on ... anything apart from him, really. Which meant that they would always end up snogging on the sofa, which, let's be honest, had been Sherlock's intention from the start. A drug addict's need for stimulation and all that.

It was, as simple as that, just lovely. And who would have thought this could be said about the relationship with the world's only consulting detective? _Lovely_. It was so easy with him. It was like being reunited with your ridiculously hot best friend and ending up dating him and loving him more than yourself. Those following few weeks really were, up to this point, the happiest time of their lives. Enjoying the uneventful laziness of life for once, ordering unhealthy take away to an opened bottle of wine at midnight, staying up too late and giggling with each other like school boys. (Like slightly drunk schoolboys in their respectable chairs around a lit fireplace. Don't play with fire, kids.)

Still, they just slept in their bedroom. (Yes, _their_ bedroom.) Sherlock would never have admitted it, but he was nervous. Very, very nervous. And John knew he was nervous, so he didn't talk to him about it because he didn't want to make him any more nervous. But, as it turned out, some problems simply solved themselves in their own time and when one would least expect them to.

They came home from a case one afternoon. Not a huge one, hardly a five at first glance, but at the end of the day one that became far more exciting than initially thought. Sherlock hadn't wanted to take it at all, but John had convinced him ( _John_ had to convince _him_!) that it could be fun and good for them to do legwork again after some time, and at hearing the term _legwork_ Sherlock of course had to think of his brother, who just sat around in his super posh house making calls, filing highly secretive documents and eating pie all day, and that was what made him get dressed and go out. Not that John would have planned this evil way of manipulating him, no, of course not!

The chase of the ex-boyfriend of the very kind-hearted, very English Anastasia, who had lost the antique and tremendously precious pearl necklace of her departed godmother to said ex-boyfriend, who had then tried to sell it to, it seemed, a criminal underground organisation led by a bunch of amateurs, was a little rough after having been out of the business for some weeks. Sherlock had almost fallen over the railing at one point (yes, the railing of a boat - quite James Bondian, John felt along with a positive thrill in his bones), but John had held him and they didn't let go of each other's hands from then on. In the end, Anastasia got her treasure back and the police handled it from there.

John's fingers were so steady as he held the key in his hand and unlocked the front door to their flat. He felt the adrenaline pumping in his blood, his blood pumping through his veins, he felt it all. He could feel that Sherlock felt it, too. They were still breathing hard, the rush only just sinking in. He was looking over his shoulder to find Sherlock's piercing eyes boring into him, eyes filled with pupils blown wide by lust. And it was lust. John knew this look on Sherlock, but he knew the mild version, the version filtered by him suppressing his feelings. But not tonight.

He led him right against the wall next to the staircase, personal space had become a myth for them, and then he grasped for his arms and kissed him. John had to admit he loved it when he was being like that - pretending to be dominating John, all hard kisses, pressing his body into the wallpaper - but he knew Sherlock was too soft to play this part for long. It showed in the way he kissed him (tongue in his mouth, sucking on John's lower lip but never hard enough), showed in the way he held his arms up above his head (fingers intertwined, never pushing, just holding hands), showed in the way he was whimpering already.

As Sherlock stepped even closer, one long leg brushing the space between John's thighs, John let go of his hands and ran them down Sherlock's back until he could properly cup his arse. Sherlock took a sharp breath of surprise, but lost the air in his lungs as their crotches were pressed together. He had to stop kissing him into the wall to throw his head back. It was too tempting a sight for John to resist even for a second, and now his open lips found the two freckles on his neck and greeted them by exposing his arousal.

When John was giving neck kisses, he was giving everything. His lips made their way up from outstanding collarbones, all the way up while he pressed one kiss after another until it wasn't enough anymore. _More_ , every cell in his body told him, and so he gave more, opening up and licking long stripes against Sherlock's pulse point. He so enjoyed to feel him like this, to hear that voice layered with rough gasps and _feel_ the vibrations of those deep and sensual moans that went right to his groin. More, ever more. He took a bit of skin between his lips and sucked, which he knew drove Sherlock positively mad with desire. He stretched a little to lick up to his earlobe and then, out of nowhere, bit down hard.

The trembling groan that followed was so unexpectedly loud that he worried Mrs Hudson would be standing in the hallway any second.

"Upstairs," he whispered against Sherlock's jawline. " _Now_."

They couldn't keep their hands off each other, their way to the flat interrupted by kisses and almost tripping over every two stairs, but somehow they were suddenly standing in the middle of the living room of 221B. The sun was just going down, would soon be creating that luminous atmosphere in the room that reminded of a candle's light.

John already planned to have him up against the door they just closed behind them, watching all the soft shades of orange touch his beautiful face and know that light could never touch him like he was allowed to now. But Sherlock was already gone, walking right into the kitchen. John more or less sprinted after him, took him by the wrist and whirled him around in his arms until they were facing each other again.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked, a wild grin on his face.

"M-Making tea?"

Sherlock's cheeks were stained with the kind of pink John would have loved to see in other places of his body. He was already far gone, living with Sherlock Holmes in the same rooms again, now that there was kissing, now that they were sleeping in the same bed, had left him with blue balls for a long time. Balls that were now pressing against the seam of his jeans. He knew the outline of his hard erection had to be visible by now, and he knew that Sherlock's eyes had dropped to the spot more than once during the last two minutes. After all, John had taken a look at Sherlock's trousers as well, and he liked what he saw. He loved what he could do to him. And he would finally, finally love to find out what more he could do still.

"Why? Do you want tea?" John chuckled, nuzzling his nose into the hollow of his throat while walking him backwards into the kitchen corner. Sherlock feared to lose his balance for a second as he bumped against the kitchen counter with his butt, but his hands held onto the edges of the worktop.

"I thought of something stronger than tea," John breathed hotly against Sherlock's lips.

Sherlock swallowed, not yet willing to give up on the entirety of his composure. "And how- how often have you thought of that?"

"Oh, you don't wanna know, Sherlock. Too often. I want you all the time, actually."

"Me too. Want you..." There went Sherlock's composure, along with his ability to breath normally. He was panting against John's lips with his mouth wide open and his eyes blinking, begging to be closed for the sake of focusing on other sensations.

John gave in to him, knew Sherlock was waiting and trying. He wanted him. _He wanted him_. Every part of his body was practically begging to be touched, his lips brushed John's but he held himself back. Finally, John erased the distance of hot breaths and trembling lips, and they shared open-mouthed kisses like it was the only thing they had ever been made for, the universe creating one end and one beginning, joined here between their lips. They were both gasping for air, tugging on clothes, and John playfully bit his lips several times. Sherlock growled at that, growled with desperation and endless need.

Everything from there on went so fast, thoughtless, as if their minds had risen to another sphere and this was just their bodies talking. Talking of hunger and exposure and the rawest kind of want. Sherlock tried to keep himself upright by grasping for anything, a pan and an empty milk carton being sacrificed to the floor in the process, while John pulled him down to him. He grunted into his mouth, an animal-like sound that expressed what he felt. He felt every fibre of him narrowing down to this basic instinct, and he could only think about taking him, about lifting him up on that counter and having him.

He kissed down that long neck again, and with his tongue he traced the hard pulsation that was beating against the outline of his artery. Sherlock's head knocked against the shelve behind him, but he didn't seem to mind, and his moaning wasn't one of pain but of bone-deep arousal. John began to open one button of his shirt and kiss the skin there, open another and make his way further down. He slowly went to his knees and looked up to Sherlock with something dark and predatory in his eyes that Sherlock found and held onto for dear life. Their eyes locked and Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath, swallowed as his legs trembled from seeing John like this.

John's hands were still on the verge of opening another button when he moved his fingers to each side of his chest. With both his thumbs he brushed over hard nipples, and Sherlock's eyes rolled back in his head. He had never heard him make a sound as deep as the rumbling groan that left his throat at this, and he couldn't seem to stop touching his chest and watch in fascination. His ragged breathing, his eyelids fluttering closed, him biting his lower lip swollen from snogging and sucking, and he just did it again, painting a picture of a young submissive sex god. John wanted to dominate him.

He sunk down to his knees completely. He was now on eye level with Sherlock's crotch, his erection pushing against the thin material of expensive suit trousers. Sherlock was staring down at him, but John just couldn't look away from what was right in front of him. His mouth was watering. He wanted this so much, oh, how much he wanted it. Both his thumbs dipped into Sherlock's waistband.

"Oh God," he could hear him gasp above him. And yes, he agreed, he felt the exact same way. Oh. _God_. It was so overwhelming, so heated that his whole body lit up, that his lungs worked so hard, and his mind couldn't keep up.

"It's so much," he moaned, leaning against Sherlock's clothed, hard cock, which was pulsing at the contact.

"Yes," Sherlock breathed out with a lisp.

"Should I stop?" John's voice was muffled because he was rubbing and nuzzling his face against the fabric in front of him, inhaling the scent. He wasn't being himself, his brain had shut itself down. But then again, when had he ever been more himself than in this moment, kneeling in front of the world's most brilliant detective, not able to get enough of the smell of shameless sexual desire for him, aching to take his cock in his mouth? A strange question, he found.

"I-I don't know."

They stayed like this for a bit, Sherlock's legs shaking from arousal and the fact that he wasn't really standing upright, John's own pants still uncomfortably tight, demanding of him to do something about it. His knees hurt after a while, and he was pretty sure his one foot had fallen asleep. Now on shaking legs himself, he got up. Sherlock looked at him with eyes that spoke of something so innocent that John wanted to protect him from everything and at the same time something so intensely seductive that he felt stripped naked already, just by looking for too long.

All of a sudden, John moved, and was on him before any of them could so much as blink. He grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, and all that was heard in the room was the rustling of clothes, heavy breathing and the sound of wet kisses.

"I have an idea," John said, then licked into his mouth again to which Sherlock responded with a grunt. He had no clue as to what to do with his hands, whereas John's hands found their way to the front of Sherlock's trousers and pulled him forward by the band.

He was sure he had just heard Sherlock whimpering wantonly against his lips. He rather loved to surprise him. It must have come to a surprise - him opening the button of his trousers and pulling down the zip.

"God, _John_."

"Shhh, I know."

He stopped kissing him, slowly stopped touching him (it wasn't easy) and with heavy lidded eyes he took the first step backwards and away from him. Sherlock made a sound of protest and blinked his eyes open in a way a confused child would have. Incredibly enough, he looked helpless right now.

John walked backwards until he bumped into the kitchen table behind him. They were still facing each other, too far out of reach to touch but not too far to not still feel each other, in the air, their presence so close but not close enough.

"John?"

John held his gaze, knew his eyes had to glow with just the same intensity, the same kind of yearning. His voice was not more than a whisper. "Watch me."

He had a tight grip on his belt, and with few fast and precise moves he drew the pin out and opened it. Sherlock watched him, mesmerised, his eyes glued to John's hands as he opened his jeans and pressed a palm against his cock. It jumped at the sudden contact, and he pressed harder, licking his lips. He held Sherlock's gaze when he followed the tongue with which he wetted his mouth with blown pupils, then found John's eyes and held his breath.

This was so hot, so intense. So strangely intimate, even though John was only touching himself. He pulled down his jeans until they fell around his feet, stroked his balls through the fabric. It was good, not nearly enough but good, and the thought alone, the thought of Sherlock watching him do this, was enough to make him groan long and quietly under his breath. It was so dirty, something one would only do beneath one's covers in the dark, but here he was, illuminated by the undergoing sun. Sherlock's eyes lit up the room. He was making him watch this.

John looked up from his own cock that his red pants couldn't contain anymore, looked up from the head of it pushing out from below the elastic band with just the tiniest drip of precum to it, to see how Sherlock's mouth was hanging open and shallow breaths were coming out of it. Unable to wait any longer, he pushed down his pants and let his cock spring free. It felt heavy where it stood out from between his thighs, and he watched Sherlock watch it, incapable, it seemed, to take his eyes off it. As he took himself in hand Sherlock gasped, and his own hands made their way into his trousers without thinking about it. John licked his lips again at the sight of him like this, cock pulsing in his grip, and he began to stroke slowly.

"Come on, Sherlock. Touch yourself," he growled deeply, roughly. "Touch yourself for me."

His words were Sherlock's command, and it was surprisingly hot how quickly he obeyed him. His hand disappeared in his pants and pulled out his erect cock, ran his long fingers all over it, his lip trembling with every ragged exhale. "John," he murmured lowly in his throat, and that was all he said. His grip tightened around himself, making eyelids flutter closed as he stroke faster. His skin was too dry, John could see that and feel it on his own cock.

"Sherlock," he called him in a voice as rough as sandpaper, thick with desire. Sherlock looked up immediately and the heat in his eyes hit him like lightning. He lifted his hand to his mouth, and waited for Sherlock to follow his silent lead. " _Lick_."

Sherlock's tongue peaked out, already wet with saliva, his mouth full of _hunger_ , as he was pinned down by John's blue eyes. They followed each other's movements like partners who danced together for the first time, insecurity explaining their hesitation at every next move. Pink tongues ran over palms that already tasted of themselves, but not enough of each other. They took this frustration and compressed it to desperation with which their now slick hands stroked their cocks in sync.

They didn't last long after this. The heat and arousal that rushed through John's blood and found a home between his legs, in his balls, at the end of his spine, only ever increased because of the sight in front of him. Sherlock had long enough tried to look him in the eyes (immensely hot), but his legs were shaking now as he sunk further against the kitchen counter, head against the shelf and panting wildly with his eyes pressed together. His fist was driving over his cock in untraceable speed, and John couldn't stop himself.

"Yeah, yeah, Sherlock, god, you're so hot. You're beautiful. Brilliant."

Sherlock was gasping at his words, and his voice rose to higher pitches that somehow only fuelled John's need to get off to him touching himself.

"Come on, I know you want to." John was groaning, so close already. He just wanted to push Sherlock over the edge before he came. It wouldn't take long.

"Yes, Sherlock, oh love, do it. I want to see you, I want to see so much of you."

" _Jooohn!_ "

"God, how you say my name like that, fuck. C'mon now. You're almost there, Sherlock. I want you to come all over yourself, make a mess for me, please. Come for me, come for me now."

That was all Sherlock needed. One more long moan that ended in that pretty high-pitched sound that gave away desperation and defeat. His hand slowed on himself and then he was right there, coming all over the floor, over his half open shirt like the hot mess he was, but he didn't stop there. Each aftershock made his hips thrust forward once more, and cum was still spilling over the head of his cock and his hand. His orgasm looked so intense that John had to wonder when he had last done this. That unexpected feelings crushed down on him - the sheer trust of Sherlock to let him see this, and _my God_ , the sight of him! - and suddenly he was all his, muscles tightening and nerve endings tingling so hard that he was coming, one spurt hitting his throat and the rest making his hand sticky and his skin too hot and too sensitive to touch.

He let out one long, shaking breath, and slowly Sherlock's breathless voice began to fade in again under the clinking white noise. They were both sweating, a mess of all kinds of fluids all over themselves and the floor.

"Wow. That was..." His brain failed to find words, but he hadn't tried too hard finding any.

It seemed that Sherlock hadn't moved for minutes, lids still pressed together, jaw dropped to let through the hard breathing. John walked towards him on shaky legs, put his arms around slim hips and hugged him. With his head on Sherlock's shoulder and his lips against his throat he felt at home. So much at home, he realised, and he also realised how much he had missed him. Of course, it had only been minutes and they hadn't been apart, but he had missed him. The warmth of his body, the beating of his heart against his ear, the way he felt in his arms, his smell. A smell mixed with something new, something he hadn't smelled on him before. Something dangerous, something masculine and yet sweet, something primal and explicitly sexual. He would never stopped being turned on by this madman.

Taking a deep breath, he traced the side of his throat with the tip of his nose. "Are you alright?"

For the first time in what seemed like ages Sherlock opened his eyes. He blinked in confusion, much as if seeing John so close to him would have been surprising, and closed his mouth, opened it again like he wanted to say something that wouldn't get out. Then he lifted his arm, put a hand to John's cheek and kissed him. Hard, intensely. Full of yet unrecognised fulfillment that flowed right into John through the contact of their lips. It made him weak in all kinds of places.

When Sherlock pulled back, his eyes were the softest thing John had ever seen.

"I've missed you," he said.

John's heart just plainly stopped at this for a beat or two. To hear these words from Sherlock, hear his own thoughts and feelings thrown back at him in the form of swollen lips and a low voice purring like honeybees caught in a cello made his heart swell and swell. His eyes filled with tears, which he quickly blinked away again, and his face broke into a broad grin.

"Let's clean up a bit, shall we?"

Sherlock looked around with a frown, the beginning of a pout already showing on his face. "Hmh. You know how to kill a mood, don't you?"

But John didn't take his eyes off him as a flirtatious expression took over his face. "Oh, the kitchen? Who said anything about the kitchen? I was talking about you and me."

This made Sherlock shut up and listen very closely.

John drew himself up to his full height until his lips were ghosting over Sherlock's ear. "Let's take a long, hot bath. _Loverboy_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Shinedown - Miracle](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8_0gfc_Ddk)
> 
>  
> 
> _Take another look_  
>  _Take a look around_  
>  _It’s you and me_  
>  _It’s here and now_  
>  _As you sparkle in the sky_  
>  _I’ll catch you while I can_  
>  _Cause all we are is all I am_
> 
>  
> 
> _I just want you to see_  
>  _What I’ve always believed_  
>  _You are the miracle in me_


	12. Bites and Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life could not be better. This was everything he had ever needed, would ever want. He had always thought he was supposed to have a wife, have children, when all he really needed to have was Sherlock Holmes by his side. And as long as no one reminded him of the fact that he had actually married a few months ago, that he actually had a wife and a child on the way, everything was fine. But of course, this bubble of perfection in which they currently lived was bound to burst sooner or later.

John loved baths. A moment of calm heat, steam surrounding his blissed out head, creeping under his skin. Bubbles tickling more sensitive parts of his body, his arms on each side of the tub. Maybe a few candles burning. Maybe a quiet set of music playing in the distance. Yes, he remembered the days when he was lying in the bathtub, having one long needed bathing session, and Sherlock was somewhere on the other side of that door, playing one of Mendelsson's Lieder on his violin sometimes, letting John sink deeper into a world of warmth and comfort.

So tonight, the sun had finally set, he was excited. He was excited for them to have this because what he loved almost more than baths was having a bath with a _lover_. That hadn't happened in ages. He could still distantly remember how it felt, the intimacy of it all, the trusting of each other. Tonight he ran them a bath, put his favourite brand of bodywash in it (smelling like milk and honey - classic but wonderful). All the while Sherlock was watching him, still glassy-eyed and unfocused. He wasn't quite sure how to read that expression on him. But when he kissed him while the water filled the tub, everything was just right and perfect, and with the rising heat of the room their need for each other rose, too.

They were kissing and breathing hard. Fast but with so much care, so much caution. They were undressing each other, finally able to touch and see their naked skin and the scars of past tragedies. Sherlock let his fingers run along John's gunshot injury with the weight of sinking feathers before he pressed his lips to it, treasuring this ugly thing on his shoulder in the most precious way possible.

When John saw the scars on Sherlock's back, he took a sharp breath.

"Oh, _Sherlock_."

He hadn't seen his back in years, even though he had seen him topless countless times to take care of his newest scar. But Sherlock had always made sure to lie on his back for that. Now he knew why. The worst thing of it all was that a part of him had known he would bring back something from the dead that was nastier than sad excuses and a broken heart. He kissed his way down Sherlock's back to show him that it was okay, it was all fine, that this, too, would pass. The scars would fade and John would still be here.

They were both so relaxed once they had adjusted their positions in the water. The tub wasn't too big and Sherlock's legs were way too long to not hang over the edge of it. It was perfect. John had his arms spread out on each side, bubbles tickling their bodies, and they both had their heads laying back. Every once in a while John would press a kiss on top of Sherlock's now flattened hair, or to the crook of his neck and shoulder, or take his hand out of the water and kiss his knuckles. It really was perfect. He found out that he had forgotten some very important facts about why he loved bathing together. The skin felt so soft and the lines of where one body began and the other ended were much more blurred, as if they were surrounded by a uniting kind of energy when underwater.

Sherlock looked up at him from where he was leaning back against his chest, the most content of smiles on his lips. His lids looked heavy when he blinked, like that of a man who was drunk and tired. Drunk on love and tired of ... well, today had been a lot for his still recovering transport.

"Hmmh," he purred, and then sighed. "You look sexy with your hair slicked back."

John chuckled. "That word sounds funny in your mouth."

Sherlock let out a snort. "Better get used to it. You're going to hear it _a lot_ from now on."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah." Sherlock lifted his arms and wrapped them around John's neck to hold him closer. "My sexy army doctor."

He bit his lip to hold back the huge smile on his face. "You're ridiculous."

"Ridiculously sexy."

"Hmh, that too." John leant down to kiss him, but Sherlock pressed a finger to his mouth before he could reach him, a playful grin on his flushed faced. _God, was he beautiful_.

Before John could wonder what that was about, Sherlock turned around in his arms and pressed their bodies together, chest to chest, Sherlock's semi-hard cock against his belly, and he started placing long, passionate kisses along his jawline.

John knew this couldn't go on forever, but _Christ_ , he wished for nothing more than to capture this exact moment and come back to it over and over again. He would never tire of this hot, scented bath, a naked Sherlock Holmes in his arms, not getting enough of kissing him, being turned on because of him, wanting him. This was too good to be true. Oh, he loved him so much. When had this ever happened to him before? Getting what he really wanted after waiting for so long? His heart began to ache again.

He put his hand to the back of Sherlock's neck, stroking the back of his head with his nails, running his fingers down that magnificent back (careful with the scars, for they deserved gentle hands) and he realised he had stopped kissing him. Listening to his breathing and feeling it against his neck he suddenly knew what had happened. His hand reached farther down to hover over the lovely swell of that glorious arse he hadn't been able to stop looking at since Sherlock had turned around. Then he pinched it.

Sherlock woke up with a gasp of pleasure. He raised his head from John's chest, the sensitive skin around his mouth red from John's stubble (which satisfied a deep anchored possessiveness within him) and gave him a blinking look of confusion. He tilted his head to the side, then put a finger into his ear with a pout.

"It's dangerous to fall asleep in the bath," John whispered with the faintest of smirks, and bit Sherlock's other ear.

Sherlock gasped again before he shook his head a few times. He did it to get the water out of his ear, but John was convinced he also enjoyed splashing water into his face with his wet hair.

"You wanker."

Sherlock looked up at him and they stared at each other for a few seconds, thinking about the most recent event in their kitchen in relation to the comment John had just made, before both of them broke out into laughter. John began to hold onto him so tightly (because he had him now, he had this!), wanting to feel every bit of his hard breathing and the vibrations pulsing through his body. The deep wonderful sound of his laughter that slowly died out and ended with their foreheads touching.

They stayed like this for a bit until John gave a quick kiss to his temple. "Come on now, you're already dizzy from the heat. Let's go to bed. It's time to take your meds."

And Sherlock wanted to complain, he really did. But all he could see then was Doctor John Watson, showing him what it felt like to be loved, and he could simultaneously feel his face hurt from smiling so much as well as the wish to break out into tears over this beauty he didn't deserve. So he let him wrap him in a towel until he was dry enough to put on his pyjamas, give him his medication, look after his injury, and finally take him to bed.

A few weeks ago he had wondered if he could ever sleep soundly again. Well, with John Watson next to him he was meant to sleep like a baby.

 

***

 

When Sherlock woke up and rubbed the last bits of sleep out of his eyes, John was already awake. That was new. He usually woke up earlier than him, always grateful for those moments of having John all for himself while he still rested. His long lashes would touch his cheek, he would look so calm and soft. But today it was Sherlock who was being watched – watched, in fact, as if he was something precious, something worth watching over to protect it. He wasn't sure if the attention of these ocean blue eyes was too much for him in the morning or if he was just too suspicious of perfection.

"Morning, sleepyhead," John whispered in his raspy morning voice that was just a tiny bit hot.

A smile fell on Sherlock's face, and he shifted closer to him until he could rub his cheek against John's chest. John put his arm around him.

"I still can't believe I get to wake up next to you."

Sherlock's answer was a simple low sound in his throat, his voice too thick from sleep and his mouth too lazy to speak yet. However, his mouth wasn't too lazy to press some kisses to the stubble on John's skin. His fingers sunk into his curls, filling him up with a toe-curling sensation that only fuelled the little flames of arousal in his gut.

"Yesterday. Was brilliant."

"I see you still feel the same." John was of course referring to the discreetly but obviously hard length that was resting warmly and close to his thigh. It happened on many lazy mornings just like this one. He usually avoided cuddling up to him in a position where he could feel what he had woken up to, what his unconscious body craved even in his sleep, out of fear of rejection or mockery.

Even today, Sherlock took a sharp breath.

"No, it's fine, Sherlock, that's perfectly normal."

He knew it was fine. It had happened to him, and some of those times were years ago. Before he'd had the privilege to wake up to John's body heat in bed next to him, to his smell, his gentle touches and long kisses. His usual procedure was to ignore it or to keep enough distance for John not to feel it through the thin fabric of his bottoms.

But today he felt different about this. He felt daring. With the slightest hint of smugness on his face he pressed his crotch closer to John's thigh, making his morning hard-on very much sensible, even through two layers of fabric. John started licking his lips.

"I know it's fine," he purred.

"God, you terrible, gorgeous thing. Come here."

Sherlock's cock gave a twitch, and John pulled him into a kiss full of promise and morning laziness and love, so much love and affection.

"You like that, don't you?" John asked knowingly during those rare moment where their open lips parted with wet noises and shared saliva. It seemed odd to say Sherlock loved kissing for being such an intimate way of sharing each other, but it was one of the reasons why he had become addicted.

"When I praise you."

Sherlock didn't say anything, just tried to kiss him again.

"Sometimes you blush like a schoolgirl. I love making you blush."

"Oh, _John_." His tongue licked along the underside of his jaw until he found his earlobe and took it between his teeth. John growled somewhere low in his throat. A sound that went straight to Sherlock's cock. "What else would you like to make me?

"No!" He added before John could so much as think about a response. "Don't answer that! It's my turn now."

John didn't seem to mind that. "Alright," he said, breathless.

Sherlock began to sink down on him until he could lift his washed out, dark red shirt. He pressed his lips to the soft light blond hairs on his chest, kissed his way down to his belly, rubbed his nose against the hairs around his navel, and he loved, yes, he absolutely _adored_ John's body. Especially like this, underneath him, and his to explore. He felt the growing bulge in John's pants, and his mouth was watering. He didn't dare to touch it yet. Kissing and sucking the skin between John's hipbones and feeling his breathing getting faster and faster seemed like the safer option for now. But _oh_ , he wanted him. He wanted him all the time. Which was the main problem here, really. Who knew what it would do to him?

"I should've done that yesterday," he murmured, licked the words into his skin.

John agreed with a long, pleasure driven hum.

"God, John, you looked so _huge_. I just wanted to touch you. I need to know how big you feel in my mouth. For science!"

His thumbs were diving into the unexplored territory below John's waistband, and he was just about to pull it down and reveal his mouthwatering prize underneath the fabric when suddenly …

_"Hoohoo, boys!"_

Sherlock eyes snapped up to find John's, and they shared a look of mutual confusion about how there were still other people existing in this world beside the two of them. It was not before long, though, that Sherlock started sucking at one of his hipbones again.

John immediately tensed under him. "Sherlock. Mrs Hudson..."

"She will think we're still asleep."

"Sherlock, John, I know you are in there! And I know you're awake!" came another cry from the kitchen.

"She's bluffing, she can't know we're awake."

"Very well." Another cry. "Then I might as well come in and not walk in on nothing at all because you two are sleeping!"

John frowned at Sherlock, who was still only inches away from his crotch, until he admitted his defeat with an eyeroll.

"Oh, for God's sake," he murmured. Then, in the direction of the door, "Coming, Mrs Hudson!"

John snickered. "Let's hope she doesn't get that wrong."

It provoked another eyeroll from Sherlock, and a very quick smile for which he turned around. No need to encourage John in his schoolboy humour (which he adored terribly). He got up and covered his half naked body with a dressing gown before throwing one to the bed for John to catch.

"This woman is starting to become a real problem, John. She knows us too well."

"Or you just tend to be a bit predictable."

Sherlock threw his head around to watch John closing the blue robe of his, which was too big for him only on second glance, and narrowed his eyes at his comment. Seeing this, John just took the opportunity to press a quick kiss to his cheek before he could object.

"Predictable to be full of surprises," he whispered, messing with him just a tiny bit.

"Very funny."

 

It was good that they had each abused Sherlock's dressing gowns to cover themselves, as the reason why Mrs Hudson had called them so eagerly was that they had a visitor. A client, and to be even more precise, the client from yesterday. Anastasia was sitting a bit awkwardly on their kitchen table, possibly embarrassed to have come to them while they were still in their pyjamas, but as soon as they all had a cup of tea in front of them her tongue was loosened, and she told them why she had come here.

It turned out she wanted to thank them for returning the necklace of her dead grandmother. She told them about how much she valued that thing, and that it would always remind her of the stories her grandma, who had pretty much raised her. She had often told of her childhood adventures on the open sea, since her father had been a sailor. How one day they had found that treasure, so her father had it made into a piece of jewellery for her, so that she would never forget how the sea was a part of her. Anastasia felt that by owning this necklace a part of her grandma would always be by her side and protect her.

She even said, in between sentences, that it had to sound silly to be so attached to something so little, but Sherlock, of all people, shook his head.

John didn't know what to make of it when Sherlock seemed a little touched by her romanticised story about sentiment and nostalgia. He could only assume that it reminded him of his own grandma, of which he knew even less than about the rest of his family, but he had always thought, by reading the little hints that even Sherlock could not help but leave sometimes, that she must have been a rather important person in his life.

"So I know, Mr Holmes, that you don't charge your clients anything for solving their cases, but... you have no idea how much this means to me, and I can see that you and Dr Watson are very good people. So nanna left me a lot of money and her house, and I have everything I need and more. And I know, I know that money isn't everything, but I just hope that you will accept this cheque that I wrote you. It's the least I can do."

And said cheque left all three of them (of course Mrs Hudson had been too curious to leave) speechless. At first, Sherlock did not want to accept it. But then he caught something in her brown eyes. Something that reminded him of a frightened deer, and he saw, saw it so clearly, that she had far from everything. She had just lost the person closest to her before being betrayed by a person she had once trusted, and now she was all alone. It wasn't just sentiment that made her cling so much to an old necklace. It was pure logic. That jewellery was everything she could hold onto now, if she didn't want to drown in the open sea.

Now here she was, seeing those two middle-aged men who were willing to help her and stand up for her and take nothing in return, and since money was all she had to give this was the only way she knew how to reward them for being good to her. For some reason Sherlock saw a part of his younger self in those eyes. Her gesture meant too much to him to not accept her money.

When she said her farewell at the door, she left them with the words, "I wish you all the best in life," and Sherlock found himself looking over to John with his tousled bed hair, in his too large dressing gown and the still visible crease on the side of his face that the pillow had pressed into his skin, and all he could think was, _I already have_.

After she left, they took their second cups of tea and some toast at the kitchen table, and John read the cheque over once more.

"So. I guess karma is still a thing after all," he said.

Sherlock smiled a bit absently, and the lack of a reply made John look up at him.

"Really? No complaints about how we had to get out of bed for something as tedious as money? Or wait." He started grinning in that way that made Sherlock's stomach flutter with the silly feelings one had when one was head over heels in love. "Could it be that you actually enjoy being nice to other people?"

"I just think," Sherlock started, the realisation of what he was about to say just sinking in and stunning him a bit. "We have all the time in the world."

He was about to question this, to not allow thoughts and hopes to take that road, but then John's grin cracked and transformed into something softer.

"We do."

So from there on they did just that. Taking all the time in the world.

 

***

 

London started to get colder while the time passed by and the shops and supermarkets intensified their preparations for Christmas, silently forcing the people, Christian or not, to join them in that sugary, sparkly cult. It was the time of the year in which everyone craved for snow, but no one really wanted to deal with snow or the cold weather in general.

John had always rather liked Christmas. Not immensely, since shopping for gifts and choosing a place to stay without a real family and all that had always been stressful, and he knew he tended to gain a bit of weight around the holidays, but it had its charms. His jumpers slowly became thicker and cuddlier, and he shaved less frequently, so that there was a tiny bit more stubble on his face now. (Sherlock was fifty percent more likely to be obsessed with his jaw and neck in the mornings before he had followed his bathroom routine and shaved, so that was that.)

Sherlock, on the other hand, had never much gotten the hang of Christmas. And part of that was a lie he used to tell people who he knew would just call him cynical if he said he didn't like it. He did get the hang of it. The season to love, the season to give and remember what was important in life, spending time at home with the family, cuddling in front of the fireplace, sparkly lights, chopped trees that made a mess of the whole living room, Santa Claus, Coca Cola … Alright, maybe there were some things he still didn't get. But he understood the general appeal of it all.

The thing was that it seemed so hard for him to think back to the last time he had actually enjoyed Christmas. Sure, there would always be the Christmas dinners at his parents' house. With Mycroft. Sometimes. Provided he wasn't too coked up to move and to even hear Mycroft's calls to properly ignore them, or that he wasn't currently in rehab or alone in his flat (because he had foolishly assumed John would stay home instead of going to his sister) or in some dark place in the world to dismantle a network of criminals. So it might be understandable why this holiday didn't exactly bring up the most pleasant memories in him.

But this year was different. He would have never thought they still got the chance to do this - not after John's wedding. He couldn't have known John would really want to celebrate this the right way with him for once, and yet here they were. It was so unspoken, went utterly unnoticed, simply because of how perfect everything was. They decorated the flat together, and when Mrs Hudson came up to ask what caused all that rumbling (John had fallen off a chair trying to attach some festive lights and Sherlock had destroyed a Christmas ball, and now they were laughing about it) she had made the quietest whimper that indicated how emotional the sight of them still made her. Very understandable. It had taken them fairly long to finally get there.

She invited them to her flat for baking, and it turned out that Sherlock really had a hand for cooking (John was simultaneously annoyed, proud and turned on by all his talents, which made kind of the weird mixture in his brain) and John frequently sneaked up on him from behind and nuzzled against his neck to distract Sherlock enough to eat from the dough for the biscuits. He often thought to himself what a terrible and annoying couple they had to be. Everyone seemed to be fine with that.

As Christmas Eve was lurking around the corner, Sherlock was slowly trying to help John with coming to terms with the facts. The fact of his wedding ring, stowed away in one of the drawers in his unused bedroom. The existence of one Mary Watson in their lives.

"We have to talk about this," Sherlock said, brewing something now unrecognisable over a hot flame.

"About what?" John had just come back from the store to get some fresh air and avoid this exact topic. "Oh no. We don't."

"I invited her for Christmas."

John didn't talk to him for hours. Not until Sherlock went to bed and he followed him because he had missed him for hours, and he cuddled up to him and told him how silly and hot he looked in those safety goggles from earlier that day. It wasn't like Sherlock didn't know why he would be upset. It was John's marriage after all, and it was none of his business to interfere with this. But this was also his real life. Mary, the baby. The life he had chosen a long time ago. So of course John would be upset now if he talked about Mary, because he wasn't ready to leave yet. He knew that John had to leave eventually. They just both weren't ready to face the inevitable truth at this point.

 

Christmas was lovely. They spent a cosy evening in the living room in the colourfully lit atmosphere of 221B. Rain was whipping against the window and Mrs Hudson and John, each with a glass of hot punch in hand, watched both in awe and absolute adoration as Sherlock played for them his own version of All I Want for Christmas on the violin. They had all brought gifts for one another.

John and Sherlock had decided it was time for Mrs Hudson to have a smartphone (so she could get her gossip on whatever social media platform she liked at all times). John tried to help her set it up, but soon had to give up and hand it over to Sherlock, who had rolled his eyes one too many times at his slow tapping and lack of expertise. John had one more cup of punch to gain back his dignity.

Sherlock's present for John was a wristwatch that was also a fitness tracker (and partly meant as a joke because John did gain a few pounds over the holidays).

Mrs Hudson got them new bedclothes (because it was something people didn't get themselves, she said, and yes, hint taken), but Sherlock felt a stinging feeling in his chest because he knew that after Christmas and John's reunion with Mary he would probably move out again soon, and Sherlock wouldn't sleep in their... _his_ bed for a while.

John had bought a pair of weatherproof boots for Sherlock, plain but of high quality (because chasing after criminals on dress shoes around this time of the year was bloody dangerous) and a book on beekeeping (as for some reason he talked about it a lot recently before he fell asleep, and sometimes in his sleep, too). Sherlock felt bad because John had given him two things, so John offered Sherlock to simply give him twenty four kisses as a second gift. Those twenty four rather turned into a few hundred when Sherlock decided he would kiss up and down his whole body beneath new soft covers that night.

But after Christmas reality came hunting for them relentlessly. It had a tight grip around their throats, ready to snap them, and John felt that grip in the form of a tie that just wouldn't sit right under his collar. They were about to leave to visit Sherlock's parents, and John was nervous. It showed in the way he was trying to adjust his tie, in the way he eyed himself with scepticism in the mirror above the fireplace, displaying the kind of insecurity that he would never admit himself suffering from. He liked Sherlock's parents, but he wanted them to like him as well, and for some reason that seemed incredibly difficult. He shouldn't be insecure. He was a _soldier_. Had fought in the army! This little problem here was nothing in comparison.

Except that it was. It bloody was, it was highly problematic and only little at first glance, but at second, third, the hundredth glance he had given his own face by now, he had accepted to call this problem anything but little anymore. It was simply unacceptable. He could not stop looking at his face, seeing every wrinkle and every day of exhaustion this body had gone through in the past and present, and not liking it at all.

What was it about his face today? Why today? Why this day out of all days? Was it the crease between his brows? The one that rarely showed without the pursing of his lips, the one that cast shadows over his whole figure, the way he held himself? Did he look too strict? Was it his shirt? Oh God, it must be his shirt. This was a terrible shirt. Why had he ever thought it would be a good idea to buy it? Had he bought it? Maybe it had been a gift from someone else?

Slightly shaking his head, John silently told himself to please calm down and ignore every thought that crossed the line of actually important to absurd and ridiculous. He continued to nervously try to adjust the knot of his tie (and failed) and rolled his shoulders while letting deep breaths out through his nose.

At first, he didn't hear the slow steps of the one who was now approaching him, but then again, Sherlock was rather like a cat when it came to moving around without making any noise (and in many other aspects, too), and soon he was surrounded by the smell of expensive cologne and Sherlock Holmes. One clever set of fingers started to undo that mess of a tie around his neck and throw the thing over his shoulder. So Sherlock didn't like the tie. _Great_. They were watching themselves in the mirror together.

"Don't be such a bundle of nervousness, John," he said, in a tone that was partly mocking and a tiny bit serious. "It doesn't suit you."

"I'm not-" John started, but he couldn't really bring himself to shove any excuse between them to hide the truth. It would have been a pointless attempt since the person he would have tried to feed this lie to was one of the most observant men in the world.

"Oh, please," Sherlock interrupted the empty statement behind John's thoughts, and with his thumb he was tracing the line of his collarbone, possibly to calm him, probably out of subliminal affection. "You're practically glowing with it, _conductor_."

John got that reference (of course he did) but when he turned around, with an air of the playful kind of dominance that rank pulling brought up in him, there was a very solemn, almost hard as steel expression on his face, and although he couldn't keep himself from smiling for too long, he still managed to hold it back long enough to say, "It's _captain_ for you, soldier."

Sherlock's slightly mocking gaze changed instantly into one of raw arousal, his pupils visibly blown, and the crystal blue around them sparkling in a display of amazement. And as arousal changed again into deep affection and pure fondness, John felt the finest hint of pride about being able to do this to him, having this brilliant man give up his defenses for him and only him.

"I thought only in there," he whispered, while nodding in the direction of their bedroom without taking his eyes off him.

Their lovely game of flirtations made for a pleasant distraction, and one John wished he could be drowned in forever, here in their safe, warm space at Baker Street. But far too soon the crease returned between his brows, and he turned around again to shoot another glance into the mirror and look at a man full of self-consciousness and guilt written over his face.

Taking another deep breath, he tried to share his thoughts this time. This was one of the little things people like Ella Thompson, for example, had never managed to willingly get him to do. This _sharing of thoughts_. This _talking about it_. About his feelings, his concerns. But with Sherlock, he thought, everything may turn out just fine. They could heal together, and eventually heal themselves by giving each other the truth. "I just don't know if they will- I mean after everything that happened-"

"John, my parents are still going to like you. Now more than ever, in fact."

John wanted to turn around again abruptly, yell at Sherlock (no, not at Sherlock, just at himself), just as much as he wanted to just swallow it all down, down and down further, and to never turn around again, so his flatmate and partner would never see this display of emotions that was playing out on his face; something that was there to see for everyone who took a look in the mirror. "But how do you know?"

Yes, how could he know? After all that had happened to them, after all the hurt that they had caused each other? After all the pain he had unintentionally forced Sherlock to go through, live through, _suffer_ through and die for, twice. After sending him to his certain death, watching him bleed for him, and bleeding out. After everything, how would his parents still like him? What on this goddamn earth would make him say that?

"Isn't it obvious?" Sherlock asked softly, running his nose gently over John's short hair, breathing him in. Making him feel whole again. "They will because-"

He was bending down to whisper those secret words in his ear, breath on his neck in this intimate, intimate moment. There was no one else in this flat but them, this was their private space, the safe and warm environment of 221B, and yet. Whenever Sherlock said it, it had to be known, it had to be so clear and unmistakable, it had to be screamed from the rooftops that it would only ever be for John. For John alone to hear, always him, and John knew this, he longed for it, was aching to hear it now, _say it, say it, I need it, need you_ , and then Sherlock bent down further as he blew the words onto his skin. Carefully, like he would be afraid to break him. Close. So close.

" _I love you_."

He came very close to letting those feelings of Sherlock's love simply wash over him, embrace him and shield him from everything that was wrong with the world he lived in. But the overall bitterness that had poisoned his mind today was almost impossible to overcome. He sighed, and it felt like he was grieving someone who had never died.

"But they don't know that, do they? They should like me for what I am. I don't want them to think your best friend is married to a murderous woman who-"

"They don't know what Mary is."

"Yes, but I want them to be happy that... that we're finally where we belong. I want them to know you're loved."

"John..."

Sherlock kissed him with such force and desperation that the only option was to kiss him back, kiss him back and never let go again. "It's fine," he mumbled against his lips, and sometimes it sounded like sobs, "It will all be fine."

The kissing grew into snogging, and their bodies and needs grew more and more heated. John took the lead and began walking him backwards until the back of his legs hit his chair and he fell into it, right before having a wild John Watson crawling into his lap, lips to his throat.

"I want you, Sherlock. I just want you all the time, and I want everyone to know that you belong to me, always."

Sherlock groaned, and his next inhale was another sob. He was crying dry tears about the future loss of the most perfect human being he would ever meet. His sorrow and self-pity mixed with the pleasure of feeling John, the excitement and yearning and the feeling of John rubbing against him, a hardening cock through layers of clothing, eventually resulted in naked sexual frustration. "Oh, John. Take me!"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I want you. We waited so long."

"We're going to miss our train," John argued weakly, already opening one of Sherlock's buttons.

"I don't care."

What they did care about, however, were the louder growing steps they both heard walking up the stairs to their flat. They looked at each other for only one second before making their moves as if in some sort of rehearsed play. John got off Sherlock, made a few steps backwards and let himself fall into his own chair, grabbing some phone nearby (Sherlock's) to make himself appear busy and perhaps make that bulge in his jeans less obvious. Sherlock had tried the same by pretending to read a book and swinging one leg over the other. Seconds later there was a knock on the door.

"Come in!"

John turned around to see who their visitor (with the heavily bad timing) would be, and was a bit too obviously surprised to have Greg Lestrade walk into the room. Since their last case together he had completely, and deliberately, forgotten about him.

"Hello, John. Sherlock." He greeted them somewhat shyly, probably still remotely ashamed of what had happened and that he hadn't come by earlier.

"Hey, Greg," John said with some reluctance. Was he here to ask for help on a new case? On _Christmas?!_

"Please don't look at me like that. I'm off duty."

John realised he had eyed him suspiciously from the moment he had entered, and now he felt a little sorry about that. But really just a little.

"Obviously," Sherlock commented.

Lestrade seemed to be about to say something, but then an expression of confusion made him close his mouth again when he took a closer look at Sherlock. "Is there a reason for holding that book upside down?"

Sherlock looked down at the book in his hand, and in a moment of opening his mouth and closing it again without having actual words come out of it, he cleared his throat, blinked twice and put the book away. "It's an experiment," he concluded.

Lestrade didn't dare to ask any follow-up questions. "Alright … Anyway. The reason I'm here is I actually... I wanted to apologise. I know- I know it's late. But it's Christmas, right? So I was thinking this would be a good time... well, me and the Yard actually... made something for you."

Sherlock frowned so suspiciously that it made his forehead wrinkle and his eyes widen as Greg took something out of his bag. It looked like a notepad of some sorts, but it had some pink glitter and stickers on the front that could have come right out of the starter pack for a first grader. He gave it too him, nervously waiting for a reaction other than the frown once he took the thing in his bigger hands and opened the first page.

"The glitter wasn't my idea," he said in his defense.

John had come forward to the edge of his seat to take a look as well.

"Is that a bee sticker on the cover?" John asked in bemusement and disbelief.

"That was actually my idea. Since he's always such a busy bee." He winked at John, and they shared a small chuckle.

Greg was a good guy. John knew that, and now he felt truly sorry for how he had been towards him lately.

"'One free insult about the lack of intelligence around me'," Sherlock read and turned the page. "'Permission to withhold one item of evidence if I believe it will benefit the case'. Lestrade, what is this?"

"It's … Well, we made you a book of coupons that allow you to, let's say, appear on a crime scene uninvited, throw around some insults … All that stuff you'd do anyway, but with less protest from the Met now. If you have a coupon for it."

"Hmmh..." Sherlock looked past Lestrade, holding the little book between his hands under his chin, possibly already thinking about how he could use that gift in the most terrible ways.

"Of course, none of this is official," Lestrade added quickly, "And you could still technically get arrested for some of that stuff, but I promise you I'll do my best."

"In that I trust."

That phrase was a surprising thing to hear from Sherlock Holmes. Lestrade reacted to it most appropriately: surprised.

"Now, if you would excuse us, Detective Inspector, John and I have a train to catch."

He jumped out of his chair and threw over his coat so fast that John felt like his brain had trouble catching up. _That bastard_ , he thought, looking at the chair opposite him on which they, not five minutes ago, had agreed to miss their train for other purposes. But well, Sherlock had his moods.

He wrapped his blue scarf around that long neck of his, and shot Lestrade a quick smile. "And we wouldn't want to disappoint my dear brother, would we?"

"Or mummy," John added, and finally took his own jacket from the hook.

"Or your date," Sherlock said after letting his eyes roam over the inspector's whole form only once.

"Date?" He laughed nervously. "It's not a date!"

"Oh, so there _is_ someone you're seeing." With that he left, certainly with a smug smile on his lips, and rushed down the stairs.

"I'm going to the morgue, if you must know!" he cried after him.

But Sherlock just replied with a loud, "Come along, John."

Lestrade was about to go in for a big sigh when John made him look in his eyes by putting a hand to his shoulder.

"Thank you. For coming here."

He smiled back, a bit tired looking but sincere. "Merry Christmas to you two."

"Merry Christmas. And good luck with your date!"

John grabbed their suitcase and followed Sherlock down into the hallway, seen out by Lestrade's groan of protest at the accusation. John held back giggles until he stepped outside to smell the fresh air of a cold day in late December. _This is how it should feel like_ , he realised with a sudden emotion of something that could be nostalgia but wasn't. _This is how it should feel like to be back at Baker Street_. He had been granted some glimpses of how his life with Sherlock used to be. He would do anything, whatever it was going to take, to keep it this time.

 

***

 

The wind was cold and the grass was wet. It had rained the night before. She hadn't been home. The mud was softer beneath her feet, had splashed dark sprinkles of dirt onto the stones. _Like blood_ , she thought.

Like blood.

She was not grieving. Had never, or couldn't remember how to. Not when her parents had died and not when he had died. At least she wouldn't call it grief. It hurt, yes. It hurt to be one step closer to the bottomless pit of sorrow and insanity and ten steps farther away from anyone who would catch her falling.

No one had caught _him_ falling either. So that should make her feel better. But he had come back.

He had come back after having destroyed so much work, so much of what their name had influence over in this big bad world. And why? Why couldn't he have died in one of those ugly places? Left to rot forever in someone else's torture chamber?

Well, easy. Where would have been the fun in that?

A smile rushed over her face as her eyes roamed over that fake name on the gravestone. Was it worth it? In the end? Holmes had come back because there was something in this joke of a city for him that was worth coming back to. Funny.

It would be such a shame. So funny. To slowly take it apart and watch him. How had he always called it? This little game of the two of them? To watch him dance. Watch him burn.

What an obsessive, brilliant man he had been. Back when he had claimed more than just the name.

She reached out to touch the wet surface of the stone she was looking at. She had long stopped bringing flowers to that grave. It had always seemed like such a sweet thing to do. But everything, she had learned, got boring once it became routine.

When she thought about it, in the end, he hadn't died all that cleverly.

Today she missed him.

_Bu-bu-bum-bum-bum._

_Another one bites the dust._

_Another one bites the dust._

She didn't turn around to look at the person who had just unplugged their earphones. She already knew who it was. Her fingers tapped to the sound of the beat that was playing behind her, and she kept her eyes locked with the gravestone. In the distance, someone was crying.

_And another one gone, and another one gone._

_Another one bites the dust._

"It's time," the voice said in a neutral tone, loud enough to be heard over the music.

_Hey, I'm gonna get you, too._

_Another one bites the dust._

"I know," she replied, calmly. "I've been waiting."

He, too, had always had a liking for music from the '80s.

 _There are plenty of ways that you can hurt a man._ _  
_

_And bring him to the ground._

"Good," she said behind her.

She nodded one last time to the empty coffin beneath the earth's surface in front of her. That stone had no right to stand here anymore.

They left as if they wouldn't know each other. Just about to begin.

_You can beat him, you can cheat him, you can treat him bad._

_And leave him when he's down._

 

***

 

Richard Brook

 

October 21, 1976 – June 15, 2012

 

You will never be forgotten

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Florence + The Machine - Heavy In Your Arms](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SK6U4FiAoAs)
> 
>   _I was a heavy heart to carry_  
>  _my beloved was weighed down_  
>  _My arms around his neck_  
>  _My fingers laced to crown_
> 
>   _I was a heavy heart to carry_  
>  _But he never let me down_  
>  _When he had me in his arms_  
>  _My feet never touched the ground_


	13. Deep Blue Dive

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He didn't want to do this now, but he had to. He had planned this for a while, actually, and now that they only had one good hour and a half left till they would leave the train, he had to do this now. John looked worried already, which was not good, but he had applied this tone to the sound of his name, so it was very reasonable of him to look worried, oh, clever John, because he only said his name in that specific tone when there was something wrong.
> 
> "John, there's something I should say."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Sexy times. Lots of feels.

They arrived at the station earlier as planned. In London, one simply had to reckon with the maximum amount of time it could take you to arrive somewhere and then double it, just to be on the safe side. John, his nervousness and impatience, which had both returned to him during the cab ride, paired with the fact that it was freezing today, was already annoyed.

Sherlock watched his boyfriend's shivering form next to him on the platform with a bemused smile. "Are you cold?"

"Wow," John replied sorely. "No idea how you could've possibly deduced that."

Sherlock's smile turned into a grin. "Come here."

John didn't even hesitate, even though they had never done anything like this in public before, and leant into him. The grumpy look on his face betrayed his actions as he put his head on his chest and let a hand slip under the coat to hold him at the small of his back.

"Should've wrapped yourself up a bit better," Sherlock whispered, a little flustered from suddenly having John so close to him and for everyone to see.

"Sorry, not everyone can have a high quality wool tent as a coat."

"You could, technically."

"Oh, don't even pretend you'd complain about having me like this."

"Just because I always need you," the detective hushed under his breath.

"What?" John looked up at him, and the long moment of one pair of eyes meeting another, the countless emotions caught within them, the attention on his mouth as John's gaze dropped every once in a while, lay heavy on his buzzing heart.

So he just said, "You're still shivering," and began unbuttoning his coat.

"What are you doing?"

But Sherlock had already begun to wrap the coat around both of them.

"Tenting?"

"You're ridiculous," John mumbled, and held onto him tightly. "We must look absolutely ridiculous."

"Do you mind?"

"Nah."

It was only a matter of minutes before their train would arrive, and John leant in closer. He sighed into the crook of Sherlock's neck, breathing in the comfort of the embrace and his body.

"I'm gonna miss this."

"It's just for a few days, John."

"I just don't even wanna pretend to be with anyone else ever again."

A lump placed itself most inconveniently in his throat at hearing those words from him. "Oh, John." He let his hands run over his shoulders, his back and held him close to him by wrapping his arms around his waist, leaving not a hair of distance between them. "I can't believe this is real."

And although John still felt the same on most days, he was brave enough to meet his eyes again and smile. "Believe me. It is real."

Seconds later he was showing him just how real it was. Grabbing him by his coat collar, he pulled him down to him and kissed him deeply, pouring all the love he could give into this to make sure that he knew.

In that moment, a man walked by them, obviously pretending to be unnecessarily grossed out by the sight.

"Faggots," the man spat.

John rolled his eyes and broke the kiss, leaving Sherlock a bit confused and dizzy there, to call after him in a rather pissed off tone.

"At least eating arse won't make me turn into one!"

Several people around the platform started looking at him. Including Sherlock, who had a bit of trouble closing his mouth. _John fought for him_. It wasn't the insult in itself, not the suggestion that he could be gay that bothered him. It was this man's attitude towards them as a couple that he had felt the need to call out.

The train was arriving and the platform filled with crowds of people coming in from all sides. The wind blew around them, howling like lost souls on the hunt for comfort around warm bodies, and whirled around Sherlock's dark curls.

They were standing there, pressed against strangers waiting to be let onto the train when they could've easily been the two only people in the world.

"You never cease to amaze me, John Watson."

 

***

 

Once they got on the train, it was silent. Not completely silent, of course. There were still voices, whispers, and laughter, as such trains naturally inhabited. Also, the volume of one's own constant string of thoughts was always the same, no matter what. Sherlock and John finally made it to their reserved compartment. First class. Obviously, it had been Mycroft who had ordered their tickets.

As much as John appreciated this kind of privacy (and having two cushioned benches in a separated cabin just for themselves definitely was private), he feared the lack of distraction and the weight of his own worries. Looking out of the window, he watched the English countryside pass by. There wasn't much to see. There never was. The most interesting thing he could imagine was already sitting on this train next to him, absorbed in his new book about beekeeping.

Most of the time Sherlock had this incredible amount of control over his own mind. If worrying was not helpful in a moment of danger, he simply switched it off. If he believed emotional attachment to be an obstruction to his work, he would not get attached. Of course, his methods didn't always work. Again, the evidence of that was sitting right next to him. He was amazing and terrible and beautiful, and somehow, miraculously, he had agreed to give himself to John Watson and trust him.

Not many were able to see him for what he really was. John liked to praise himself for being able to read him better than anyone else who had tried it. But who had actually given him a real chance before him? Greg Lestrade certainly had. And even he had told him, on the first day he had met him, actually, that John would already know Sherlock better than he himself. Greg had always believed that he could be a good man. _Well_ , he thought, looking over to that pale and pretty face, suddenly seeming so young again, his eyes glued to long dried ink, chasing words and phrases, _I know he is_. He was _his_ good man.

"It was nice of him," John said, looking out of the window again.

"Hmh?" Sherlock asked, just partially paying attention.

"Greg. Coming around, giving you that gift. I mean, he must know he basically dug his own grave with that, right?"

"Oh, that. Of course, it was nice. But it wasn't for me." Sherlock looked up from his book.

John's head turned around, and his face expressed genuine confusion. "What do you mean?"

"It was for you."

He laughed once. "Yeah, because I have a reputation for bursting in on someone else's crime scenes or what?"

"John," Sherlock gave him a certain look, but couldn't help the small grin that tugged at one corner of his mouth, "I wasn't mad at Lestrade for what happened. You, on the other hand..."

"What are you saying?" John knew he was on the verge of greatly misunderstanding what Sherlock was trying to say, but he could not quite stop himself in time.

Sherlock leant in closer, bumping his shoulder into John's, and let out a sigh.

"Just what you've been saying. It was nice of him. I appreciate his apology. But he wasn't apologising to _me_."

"Hmh." John thought about this for a few minutes. It was true. He had forgiven Greg, and it was easy to do so. Not only because of the time that had passed or because Sherlock had not actually suffered from anything other than some hours of unconsciousness but because he had come very close to forgiving himself. Also, had Sherlock just said that he appreciated someone else's apology? They were both growing. What a nice thought.

 

***

 

John had begun to read his own book after a while. He had brought _Treasure Island_ , and it didn't take long for Sherlock to shoot him more and more curious glances until he finally closed his book on beekeeping, and John started to read to him where they had left off. John's voice was unbelievably soothing, and Sherlock was certain that if angels were real, they would envy him for the angelic tones his throat was making and his mouth was forming into words. It was good that he knew the book so thoroughly already, as every once in a while he simply stopped listening to what that voice was saying and instead focused on John himself. He had put his head down on his shoulder to feel his warmth and have him closer. He listened to the quiet beating of his heart, and he felt him breathing beneath him, and he loved him. Like he had never loved anyone or anything.

He would miss him so much. He would miss him so much it could break him for good this time.

At the end of one chapter, Sherlock straightened his back and looked at him. Granted, he had looked at him for the entire time, but now he was much more obviously staring. John was visibly confused, but tried to smile it off. "Is there something on my face?"

"John."

He didn't want to do this now, but he had to. He had planned this for a while, actually, and now that they only had one good hour and a half left till they would leave the train, he had to do this now. John looked worried already, which was not good, but he had applied this tone to the sound of his name, so it was very reasonable of him to look worried, oh, clever John, because he only said his name in that specific tone when there was something wrong.

"John, there's something I should say."

"Sherlock, sweetheart, that sounds like you're dying or something," he joked, but joked badly because he was worried.

"Oh God." John put a hand to one sharp cheekbone, warm with apprehension, "Don't tell me you're dying."

"No! No, of course not. Dying of not getting enough of you, if anything," and yes, that last thing was only a mumble, but John heard him regardless. "I just … There are actually a few things that I have meant to say."

He took both of John's hands in his, who still had that same look of haunted worries on his face, please get that off his face, it broke him a bit.

"First of all, I should thank you for allowing me to experience something so wonderful and rewarding as being with you has been. I've never- I mean, I sort of hoped and dreamed, but I've never really thought I would get to be so close to you as you have let me be over the past few weeks. I've never had a boyfriend before... well, there have been one or two, but I don't think the term boyfriend would apply in those cases, so... yes, you've been the first, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I very deeply and with all my heart appreciate the time that I got to spent with you-"

"Wait, hold on. Sherlock." During the whole time Sherlock had spoken, John's face had just become more and more worried, instead of less and less like it was supposed to, and that was not good at all!

"Sherlock-" he was smiling, but it was a smile that displayed the borderline of panic. "That just... Sherlock, that sounds like you're saying goodbye to me here. You're scaring me a bit. I mean, you know this is only for now, right? Only a few days, you said it yourself."

Sherlock stayed silent. That was exactly why he had not wanted to do this now. He didn't want to spend the final hours of being together by explaining to him the scenario he had already prepared himself for since their first night in his bed. (Yes, _his_ bed. Soon, only his again.) Explaining to him how seeing Mary again would change everything, how he had vowed to spend his life with the person he loved (and that wasn't him), how they were about to raise a family. And of course – of course! - Sherlock would still be there. He had given his own vow, after all, and it wouldn't be easy at first, surely, but he would get over it, and he would still be there. If John wanted him, obviously. And if not then that was fairly understandable, especially after all the misery and-

" _Sherlock_. You're doing that thing again. That thing where you stop blinking for an unnaturally long amount of time, and you've gone unusually pale. Sherlock. Please, look at me."

Sherlock shook his head but a fraction, and his eyes snapped to meet John's. John's deep, dark blue eyes he wished he could drown in sometimes. Now. He wanted to drown in them now, never to return.

"Sherlock, listen to me. We'll be fine. We're always fine in the end, aren't we? Somehow. As long as we're together, it will be fine. I'm not going to leave you, and you're not going to leave me, do you hear me? I love you."

Sherlock could hear the walls breaking down. Walls that had always – well, not always, mostly – shielded him from too great an exposure, too terrible an event he was unprepared for. A mindpalace was good for that sort of thing. Preparing you, evacuating the mind when the body failed you. Now the walls were breaking down, burying his helpless self in bricks made of raw feelings. They came tumbling down, laying open every message his heart had ever sent up there.

 _John loved him_. Right. How could he have forgotten such an important detail?! It had to be somewhere around here, hadn't it? He wouldn't have deleted a moment as crucial as this! He hurried from one corner to the other of that room in his mindpalace where he stored everything John had ever said about him, but there was nothing of it, so he took a look into the storeroom where he kept all of John's blog posts. A long shot, he knew, but he was desperate.

"Sherlock? Sherlock!"

As John's voice slowly drew him back into reality, he came to a conclusion. He couldn't find what he was searching for because John had never said those words to him before.

"You've never said-"

"I know."

Of course, this changed nothing. If anything, it made the whole thing only more tragic. But then, it also changed everything. Sherlock was overrun by emotion, and John stared back as if he was trying to figure out the great secret of the deep sea, having promised to Sherlock that they would find every chest, every forgotten shipwreck on the bottom of the ocean, when he knew that this would take them more than a lifetime. He didn't look at him like he wouldn't want to complete this adventure with him. He looked like he was mourning for the impossibility of it. Like he was longing for Sherlock to be able to grasp the depth of his love for him. Like he was regretting not having said it sooner.

"That doesn't mean I haven't always..."

Sherlock understood. There was rarely a thing he didn't understand if he really wanted to. This time, he wanted to. He really, really wanted to.

Which was why he kissed him then and there. He pressed his body and his lips to John, and John landed with his back on the cushion of the seat. Sherlock opened his mouth, and instead of words pouring out of it, there were only more kisses, and there was hunger. His tongue chased John's, their moans grew into one filthy noise of suction, lust and _yes, mhm,_ playfully biting into each others mouths, tracing upper lips with pink wetness _, oh, ohhh_.

Somehow John had lost his jacket and Sherlock had lost any restraint whatsoever. He had crawled all over him, dizzily sucking on the underside of his jaw with his arse in the air. The long seat was awful to lie on, and John's heart leaped once and woke him back into what was actually happening as Sherlock shifted above him to adjust his endlessly long legs, with which he held himself upright, and he feared they would fall down any second now. Sherlock's hands fumbled with the zip of his own trousers. He panted heavily into John's ear, where he had pressed his head to the curve of neck and shoulder.

"Wait." John was breathless. "What are you doing?"

Sherlock pulled down his trousers as far as he could with his knees still boring into the cushion on each side of John. It really was a very cramped position to do this sort of thing, and also a very public and inappropriate place to strip down to one's underwear.

But every thought of protest was ever so slightly overruled by another hard twitch of his cock, which was filling with the hot evidence of his arousal, and his last attempts to stop his mad boyfriend finally died down as Sherlock put his hand just where he secretly wanted it. Long fingers pressed, ever so lightly, against the increasing hotness between his legs, adjusting the pressure with each time John's chest was rising and falling heavily.

"Oh. Oh, God."

He started massaging the growing bulge in his jeans with one hand while taking one of John's hands with the other and putting it to his own arse. John instantly, and instinctively, dug his fingers into one plum cheek, only separated through a thin layer of expensive black pants. Sherlock threw his head up as his eyes fell close. He gasped, his body shaking with arousal for long seconds, and he blindly dove in for another round of sucking John's bottom lip into his mouth, sliding his tongue against his in a dance that had no end and no beginning. John's palm slid up and under Sherlock's dress shirt, feeling the warmth of a muscular back and the finest hint of only the deepest of his scars.

His fingers ran up before he let them travel all the way down again, ghostly in their touch to make Sherlock shiver with want, and then they found the waistband of his pants. He dipped into them, just brushing the skin where his cheeks parted. Sherlock gasped, eyes snapping open in that moment. He looked at him with such sincerity, such clarity, that there really was no doubt. He knew what he was doing. What this meant. What they were about to do, that there was no backing out of this. And just like it had always been – after their first solved crime in the chilly air of a London winter night, at the pool where they had agreed to die together, when they had been on the run and handcuffed to each other – they only needed to lock eyes with each other to know.

"I need you," Sherlock whispered. "I need you. I need you now."

"Yes," John whispered back, and then one of his fingers traced Sherlock's crack until it brushed against his entrance.

Sherlock's legs trembled so hard, but he held onto him. His head was once again buried in John's shoulder as he waited for him to go on.

"Sherlock. Shit. I can't do this without … Wait. Can you reach our bag from here?"

Sherlock, dazed as he was, raised his arm to feel for the bag on the shelf above them.

"Yeah. Just on the side somewhere," John tried to guide him.

When he pulled back his arm, he was a little more focused, giving the retreated items in his hand a questioning look with one eyebrow raised.

John, clearly a little embarrassed about his now exposed hopes or expectations of how their little trip would go, coughed uncomfortably and tried for a smile. "Yes, uhm. So I brought lube."

"And condoms," Sherlock added, astounded by what he was looking at.

"And condoms..."

Sherlock looked at the small bottle of lube, looked back at John, back at the condoms with bafflement before his expression altered suddenly. He cocked a brow and a playful grin parted his lips. A cloudy silver late afternoon sky was caught in his eyes which dropped down to John's lips over and over.

"What are you waiting for, then?"

He pressed the bottle into John's palm before pressing himself against his body, rubbing his cheek to his still too clothed but warm chest. His throat let out a noise not unlike a purr, and it was one of pleasure and impatience.

"Fucking Christ, Sherlock," John murmured under his breath. "I swear one day you'll be the death of me."

The lid opened with a clicking sound, and with Sherlock's pants still hanging between his legs, covering his pulsing erection, his whole body was visibly begging for John to do something, to touch him, and to do it now.

There was a cold wetness dripping down the base of his spine, and he shivered as it slowly, gently ran down his crack until it nestled there, wetting the rim around his hole.

" _Yes_ ," he whimpered into John's ear and mindlessly nibbled at his earlobe, needing something in his mouth, needing something to suck on.

John let out a grunt before his middle finger, now covered in lube, glided down, following the slick tracks and stopping right above his entrance, just hovering there, enjoying what it did to Sherlock's panting form. He was so sensitive, so desperate already. And he hadn't even started yet.

Frustratingly slowly John's finger pushed forward, a little bit back, a little bit forth, and Sherlock groaned, long and deeply. He was so hard already, and he couldn't think about anything else but the man beneath him. Luckily, he didn't have to. As long as he could have him, have him now. Sherlock thought he could encourage him to hurry up by putting his hand back between his legs and opening the button and zip with three clever fingers. He enjoyed the twitching of John's cock once the pressure of his jeans was gone. Loved how huge it felt as he closed his hand around the last layer of fabric it was still trapped in. It was big and hot, just like it had looked like in John's hand, just like he had dreamed of it to be.

At the sensation of being stroked through his pants, John's hips snapped upwards, making Sherlock almost lose his balance on top of him, and John was digging his fingers hard into the flesh of his buttocks. Sherlock's brain gave in for a second, his whole world reduced to the pleasure of pain, and he wanted more, _more_.

John's finger ran up and down between his cheeks to coat itself in more slickness before it, sudden and unexpected, dipped into him, making Sherlock's breath hitch as those precious pink lips were forming a large, soundless _Oh!_

It was an odd feeling, one that burned as it stretched, but grew more and more familiar. As his brain switched on again, Sherlock found himself leaning towards John's finger every time he came close to pulling out. He soon came to crave the sensation of it, of having something inside of him, gracing the walls of his hole and pushing a little, curving a little. He loved the closeness of himself around John's whole finger, which became two, which became three, _oh!_ , stretching him, refuelling the burn, hurting so good. He longed for the moments in which John retreated and he himself could push back, just to long for having him back inside him.

He lost every sense of time or control over himself, only distantly aware that there was still the hard length of a clothed cock beneath his fingers, and that his own prick was hanging heavily with all the blood in his balls making it throb, jump, twitch, as the stretching, the fingers, were not enough anymore, were too slow, were not thick enough.

"John."

His name sounded godlike how it poured out of his mouth, with that rumbling, that breathless voice of his. He only hoped John would know what it meant. That he needed him now. That he would always need him.

Sherlock tightened the grip around John's cock to emphasise his message. John's head fell back with a high gasp, each of his muscles tensing up. Including the ones in his arms, with which he unintentionally pulled Sherlock closer to him, shoving his fingers deeper into him. He came so close to brushing the bundle of nerves that would have made Sherlock lose it altogether. He was helplessly rolling his hips to make John do _that_ again, _never stop_ , and whimpering unintelligently in between words mostly sounding like _please, please, need you, want you inside me, now, John!_

"Alright," John whispered back, "Alright, love, you sure?"

Sherlock, he didn't quite know how, managed to look at him with one eye closed. He knew he already looked more than done for, horny, sex driven, a naughty mess of desperation, but John liked him like this. It wasn't hard to deduce, even in his current state.

 _Open file: > things that turn John on: pulling rank, danger, winking, long coats, submissiveness, misbehaviour (so he can use his Captain Watson voice, oh God, _that _one), kissing Sherlock, praising Sherlock, making Sherlock beg and gape and gasp and– Evidence: John licking his lips, increasing pulse rate, pupils widening, licking his lips again, the more, the better, hard erect cock in his hand, bloody huge and hot and– Currently occurring: All of those things._

"I have never been more sure of anything in my entire life. Which says a lot."

"Wow, okay, just- just making sure-"

"I am sure," Sherlock said again, underlining his point by pushing his hips down and sliding their trapped erections against each other. "I want you to fuck me. Please."

John stared back with wide eyes and mouth watering, three fingers still inside of Sherlock until he snapped back into reality. Sherlock never said words like this. Somehow, that did it. His view became a tunnel vision of want and lust, and the need to take him, a raw need he had felt for a time so long he felt dizzy at having this transformed into something real now, grew unbearably strong.

"Right, give me a second."

John shifted from where he was lying underneath Sherlock and pulled his fingers out of him, a bit too eagerly, he realised as he hissed above him.

"Sorry, sorry."

But before Sherlock could say it was fine, it was all so much more than fine, he found himself in an embrace of two strong arms holding him there. His arse and thighs fitted perfectly into John's lap as he sat up, and Sherlock's limbs were already weakened as he slumped against him, holding onto him like he was the last resort if he didn't want to burn or drown. John's hands grabbed his arse to hold him so close, sitting up straight and against the backrest of the seat.

Sherlock, waking from his dazed state of mind (a difficult task, considering the feeling of John, the smell of John, John beneath him, around him, John, _John_ ), realised they were both still wearing too many damn layers of clothes. He slid off his lap, ignoring every voice in his head that uttered protest, and stepped out of the pool of pants and trousers and shoes and socks, all the while looking back at John looking at him intensely. He began opening the first buttons of his shirt, and John imitated his motions mindlessly. But they both didn't come too far, shirts only halfway opened, before Sherlock's impatience made him fall to the floor and tear down John's pants and trousers. He was too eager to do anything about them hanging around his knees.

There was a packaged condom in John's hands. His dark blue eyes caged graveness and an apology behind blown irises as he ripped it open.

"You know we have to. For now."

Sherlock nodded, swallowing down disappointment he knew seemed silly. A condom symbolised protection, certainly, but he pictured a protection from himself, from exclusiveness, from being too close, too intimate.

He took the damn thing anyway and placed it between his lips. He thought he had seen that somewhere, and so he, never able to resist a challenge, bent down until he hovered above the glans of John's cock, slightly wet from precum: He took him into his mouth as far as he could and rolled the condom over him.

"Oh my fucking God," he heard John breathe out above him.

Sherlock couldn't take the whole of it, something he would have loved to work on further, but he rolled the rest of the condom down with his hand and held him by the shaft while his mouth was still around him. _Oh my_ , this was everything. The weight of him, the hot flesh beneath the smooth latex. It was everything he had ever wanted. He hollowed his cheek to suck, and suck harder, keenly running his tongue along the frenulum and over the head and _harder, faster_.

"Sherlock, oh, _Sherlock_!" John was already panting, "If you keep going like this, this won't last long."

He wanted to tell him that it didn't have to be long, that he just needed him inside of him already, but what he gave him instead was a coy smile. "Is this enough lubricant?"

John let out a laugh, a breathless one, and drove his hand through Sherlock's wild curls. "We'll need more, believe me."

With this little sentence alone (and what it implied) he had him. Sherlock bit his lip as another wave of arousal joined the fervour in his groin. He knew that he couldn't wait any longer. Standing again on wobbly knees, he sat back on John's lap. His erection settled like a perfect fit between his arse cheeks, and John sucked in a sharp breath, clearly biting the insides of his mouth to hold back a groan.

 _This was so good already_. Sherlock was tempted to rock back and forth on the length of it, but the feeling of a warm hand on the back of his thigh woke him from his haze.

"Lift that a little," John commanded gently (he was referring to his butt).

Sherlock's body obeyed before it even registered in his brain. Clumsily, he was balancing his weight on his knees, one hand grasping John's shoulder while the other was pressed flat against the wall behind them. John, his left palm wet with lube, began to stroke himself a few times.

Sherlock's knees were buckling so hard that he couldn't support his weight for much longer. All of a sudden he felt a wetness on his other thigh. When he looked down, he found that John left a transparent handprint where he was wiping his palm on his skin. He pulled down the corners of his mouth to pout because of this impudence.

John laughed at him (at him and his dramatic expression even in moments like _this_ ) and Sherlock's face decided to pout some more. John's face grew softer at this, bright with impossible love, and as he leant forward to kiss him, they both stopped, gasping into each other's mouths before their lips could touch, each staring back into wide eyes. The slight movement had made the tip of the condom touch the rim of his hole, alerting nerves, tickling, pumping the sensation right into his balls and the reaction to it between his lips. Shallow pants left that kiss swollen mouth of his. John watched in fascination. Mesmerised.

They did it slowly. The muscles in his thighs gave in. He wanted, finally, he wanted, he wanted it so badly.

He sank down, with torturous pace, on John's hard, thick cock. He felt himself opening for him, felt every pulsation of their joined bodies, one heartbeat colliding into the other, throbbing in unison, and it was a feeling so inexplicable, incomprehensible and _amazing_ that Sherlock lost himself in that first instant. The farther he sank down on him, the closer he got, the sharper the burning returned, hotter, stronger. It was the most delicious kind of pain, and everything was slick but tight, so tight. He wondered, far away and distant as his mind was floating right now, if this big cock would even fit inside of him, if he could take the whole of him. God knew he wanted all of him.

It was as if his whole body was stretching, filling, cracking open to become more than it had ever been or could have ever dreamt of being. He felt everything. The train rattling around them, the rails taking them along at a dashing pace, the cold wind howling outside. And at the same time his feelings were so limited, heightening only the senses inside of each single second that passed by. His skin vibrating, John breathing in and out and beneath him and inside of him. He was everywhere.

With one long groan his head fell back, and his muscles unclenched, and there he was. Sitting on John's cock. Having him. Giving himself over. Being not two people anymore but one, only one, to never be parted again.

"Holy fuck, Sherlock, you are beautiful."

Those words from John's lips. Sherlock opened his eyes, and he breathed. Steady, secure, _safe_ in John's arms. Now he could finally move.

Sherlock almost blacked out the first time he felt John's cock drawing out until only the head of it was inside of him before it filled him up once more. It was an odd sensation that kept him on the edge of … everything. Existence. The small line between too much and never enough. In the beginning, John let him. John – oh wonderful, wise John! – knew what a loss of control could do to him if unprepared, so he just sat still as Sherlock moved up and down slowly, and he held his face in both his hands almost tenderly, stroking over sharp cheekbones.

Sherlock, the impatient beast, quickly lost fascination in being on the edge of everything, and he increased the pace more, every little bit of more at a time until he saw how John's eyelids fluttered shut and toneless moans began to leave his mouth. He let himself fall forward, _fuck, this angle was even more perfect,_ and crashed their lips together.

John reacted _strongly_ to this.

His hands landed where the small of his back melted into his buttocks, and pulled his cheeks farther apart to guide him. Sherlock heard a small whine coming from him, but he didn't recognise his own voice. From then on, he lost his ability to recognise anything at all. John's hands lifted him, just a little, to make it easier for him to dive into him, again and again and _yes_ , and he could feel him grinning against his shoulder as he buried his head there, thrusting his hips up faster and harder and _oh_ , he was lost, so lost, swimming in sensation and _God_ , almost, _almost_!

His moans were loud and his voice broke embarrassingly often while he let out what he felt, which was, "Oh, oh! John, _yes_ , _John_ , _Jooohn_!", and John whispered back in between his own groans and rough breathing and grunting, "Shhh, I know, shhh. Bit quieter, this is just us. I don't want anyone to hear you. You're mine, Sherlock. You're mine, you're mine."

It was so hard to keep quiet when it felt like explosives and fireworks and beautiful things were leaving his body with each deep, _ah!_ , thrust and each hard rolling of hips, and there was sweat, and their bodies collided over and over again. The small room on this train, that could have easily been another planet far away from Earth, filled with the noises of fast panting, and flesh and skin slapping against each other.

John was almost there, almost hitting this spot deep inside of him. He felt the beginnings of it prickle inside his inner walls, turning his world around, and he really wanted to keep quiet but just couldn't suppress the louder growing whimpers he made as he was stuck there, still between too much and not enough, but mostly not enough, he needed, he needed...

Hot kisses were licking away the sweat that ran down the side of his neck. It felt like the hot tears that were running down his cheeks in time with the sobs he made.

"I love you, I love you, I love you," John whispered, and maybe only to stop his tears, but Sherlock pressed himself against him closer, sobbing with more desperation still.

God, it was so good. But it was so hard to keep up, so hard to give himself over to him completely. The muscles in his thighs began to cramp while he was still crying from the overwhelmingness of it all, from the soft, never ending _I love you_ John breathed into him.

"John. _Mooore_!"

And John heard him.

He lifted him up all of a sudden, still buried inside of him, and Sherlock lost any sense of time and space as he flipped him over. Now he was lying dizzily with his back on the seat and his head in the clouds. John had slipped out of him during this, now bending over him with his shirt only halfway open, with his trousers still hanging around his ankles and _oh wow_ , if he wasn't the most handsome thing he had ever seen. With that wild sparkling in his deep blue eyes that reflected the end of the world, _and won't you_ _swallow me, I want you to_.

He dove into him again, and Sherlock's eyes rolled back in his head. His whole world turned over and became a series of _yes, again, again_ , and there he was, being fucked by this wonder of a man who took him, took everything he was and made it worth something.

"Sherlock, Sherlock, yeah, you feel so good, so good," John whispered above him while his thrusts grew faster, losing their rhythm.

He had only brushed his prostate in their previous position, but this here was mindblowing, _mindfucking_ , when he was hitting the spot directly and Sherlock would swear later something in him was starting to glow and burn down. The ecstasy of this sensation climbed up his spine until it filled him up completely with overwhelming pleasure. With every, _fuck!_ , thrust he hit this most sensitive spot and shot it all into his balls, his cock. Every next movement felt like an orgasm, only ever better, multiplied so much that he awed what would become of him once John brought him over the edge. He knew he was supposed to be quiet, but he heard himself cry out John's name with tears still streaming down his cheeks.

But John only encouraged him, and now his moans became louder, too, and more desperate. He wanted to come inside of him, but he wanted Sherlock to come first.

John bent down further, slid into him impossibly deeper, and with his arms on each side of Sherlock's pretty face he began biting and kissing the flesh alongside his neck, his collarbones. Every new touch rushed into his groin, and Sherlock shivered harder. He arched his back to meet him, and his cock was trapped between their bodies and that was almost, almost it, _yes, just a bit, yes!_

" _Joooohn_!" he whined, wrapping his legs around the back of John's thighs to be closer, _need you closer_.

"Yes, now, I love you, _I love you_."

John's hand dove down between them, and he touched Sherlock's hard length, just squeezing gently, and then he came, he came so hard, everything he had to give spurting out of him and onto his stomach and his neck and sticking to John's chest. His body floated on waves of shock and pleasure as it withered beneath John's thrusts, now faster than ever until he came and twitched and gave and groaned, long and rough. It hit Sherlock's body hard as his inner walls clenched and tightened and John's orgasm pressed against them, filled him up so thoroughly and _rightly_.

His body still spasmed every few seconds. It took them a while to come back down to Earth, and to hear anything besides white noise and heartbeats, see anything beyond colourful sparkles. When Sherlock blinked his eyes open with much more effort than it should have taken, he was surprised to see John looking back down at him. They both looked at each other with the same expression. In amazement, in wonder, in warmth that was always on the edge of burning up from all the heat. With something that made their chests bloom and their hearts jump. Could it be? Love? It felt different. He wouldn't know, of course. But it felt like something no one else in the world could have.

John put a hand to his cheek, carefully, so very unreal, but the hot sweat of his palm made it believable. He came closer to kiss him, not much more than the softest peck to his lips. They stayed like this. They had to, if they wanted to keep breathing.

"Maybe we should change clothes before we arrive," John said after a while. He was serious, but he smiled so happily.

"Hmmh," was all Sherlock could offer as a response for a long time.

He couldn't move one limb. He didn't think he wanted to. They could stay on this train and just see where it would take them. Screw responsibilities. Screw London, screw the cases. Screw every version of their lives in which they were not together. He could have said all of this. Maybe John was thinking the same. They were mad enough to pull this off.

But instead he just said, "You didn't like that shirt anyway."

John laughed, wholeheartedly. God, that was definitely one of the things he had grieved the most in the months of John's misery. That laugh. A laugh that was only for him.

"I can't believe it took so long." John took his face in his hands. "I love you. I loved you so long. I love you." 

He brushed a tear off his face before Sherlock had even realised it was there.

John loved him.

They could make it through everything.

 _He loved him_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Muse - Madness](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mq9zhpBweDk)
> 
>   _I can't get these memories out of my mind,_  
>  _And some kind of madness has started to evolve._  
>  _And I, I tried so hard to let you go,_  
>  _But some kind of madness is swallowing me whole, yeah_
> 
>   _I have finally seen the light,_  
>  _And I have finally realized_  
>  _What you mean._


	14. Here Be Dragons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So many unspoken means, so many messages, a whole sea of subtlety that lay between those words. They shared a look for a long time, and for a moment Sherlock thought he had seen everything. Every bit of how much Mycroft cared, of what he had never conceded him to feel.
> 
> "Merry Christmas."
> 
> He snorted. "You _hate_ Christmas."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the second last chapter. We're almost at the end. I've gotta say this fic and I, we've been through a bit of a rough time since the very day I started this. I also let my (borrowed) characters go through a lot, and this chapter is by all means no exception. Alright, long story short. It's always exciting for me to come close to an ending of a story (because that happens way too rarely), so thank you all for coming as far with me as we've come now.
> 
> Before you read this though let me remind you again that this story is to a certain point based on the events of His Last Vow but that some things might be... well, I guess you should've noticed by now. It's an alternative version. Enjoy the murder! Sorry, did I say murder? I meant to say marriage.

"It's only two o'clock. It's been Christmas Day for at least a week now, how can it only be two o'clock? I'm in agony."

Mycroft was being his usual overdramatic self. A trait that ran in the family.

John still hadn't talked to Mary. They had not been in the same rooms for all that long. Mary was in the living room, not really attempting (or perhaps actively avoiding) to make something of a conversation with anyone.

They had talked about this. Briefly. As briefly as possible. John would give her back the USB stick. To keep Mary in control - and with his baby in her belly - she had to think John was on good terms with her. Everything after the baby's birth was yet too much of an uncertainty to calculate with. Sherlock always liked to pretend, but he couldn't actually predict the future.

Sherlock had seated himself in a corner of the kitchen after placing a pillow on the chair (sitting was still difficult). He was currently reading about Lady Smallwood's death in the papers. How many lives had Charles Augustus Magnussen already destroyed forever? _A businessman_.

He had made his decision a long time ago. John and him sleeping together shouldn't make one bit of a difference, but...

  _I love you._

...he knew it made all the difference in the world.

He had made the decision to save Mary's life and that of John's child on condition that it would save John's. But what if it had the exact opposite effect? What if John really didn't want her at all?

It was selfish. Such a selfish way of thinking. He had his reasons to despise Magnussen. He didn't want to estimate what more he could do with _information_. But he mustn't allow himself to think that far now. This was about the one he loved and his baby. _There are lives at stake_. Literal life or death.

_Do you care about that at all?_

It wasn't an advantage. But it could help to save a life. After all, he had been taught so by the wisest human being he had ever met.

John was entering the kitchen, passing by Mycroft. They shared a meaningful look, and none of them quite knew how it was meant to be understood. His parents had joined Mary in the living room. They were alone now.

John stayed in the middle of the room for long seconds, standing still at parade rest. Eye contact with John Watson was always an intense experience, and this time was no different. He gave him a quick nod, barely noticeable, and Sherlock's body sprang to life before he even noticed. There was no more communication needed between them. John began to slowly walk backwards to the counter and Sherlock followed.

"Let me guess," he started, both of them leant onto the counter next to each other, eyeing the room in front of them rather than each other. They knew what would happen if they did.

John let out a snort. "No, I haven't."

"Still hiding then?"

That earned him a sour glare.

"John-"

"Don't. Just- it's not easy. For me."

"I never said it would be."

Silence. A sigh.

John eventually grabbed one of the empty glasses, about to pour himself some of the punch that was inside of the large bowl behind them.

"I don't think I should be entirely sober for that conversation."

Sherlock drew his bottom lip into his mouth. He shouldn't-

"Wait. Don't drink the punch."

"What, why? I'm not my sister, Sherlock."

God, did John really think it was because of that? On the other hand, John thinking of his sister could only mean he had thought about that association before ... Of course, John had often seemed more confident at talking about his feelings with a glass of alcohol in his hands. It was probably logical that today he felt the same. (He filed that away for future investigation.)

John paused, paused for a long time, ladle still in hand. His eyes pinned him for an answer in a silent interrogation. And then it clicked. The ladle fell back into the glass bowl with the impact of one heavy heart.

The look he gave him said it all. _Disappointment, anger, disbelief_. It was as if he was yelling at him, begging him, _Tell me you haven't. Tell me you haven't done what I think you have_. But this kind of punishment, the silent one, was worse.

"Let me explain."

John shook his head, avoiding his gaze. He wanted to yell at him, didn't he? He could see it in his eyes, in the clench of his fist. But instead he spoke calmly, spoke roughly. Full of hurt.

"No. We said we wouldn't do this anymore." He looked him in the eyes again, breathing heavily through his nose. It was odd. Sherlock had so quickly gotten used to the look on his face when he wanted to kiss him, he had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be on the receiving end of his rage.

"And yet you had to do it again, hadn't you? First Mary and then this – God, Sherlock, your own parents drank from this!" Then it dawned on him and his mouth fell open, breathing her name out in a whisper. "Mary..."

"But John, she wouldn't drink alcohol in her state."

A sigh of relief.

"Her tea, however..."

John stared back at him. Death stare. Sherlock swallowed down a lump of shame.

"So what are you telling me? That you got us all here for Christmas – me, Mary and your homeless junkie friend-"

"Wiggins."

"-under some hidden agenda? That you would drug your own parents and my _pregnant wife_ and be perfectly fine with not telling me about it?"

"Oh, so now you care about her?"

"Shut up!"

He was probably right. He should have kept his mouth shut. He imagined John wouldn't want him after this. Maybe now he could see. Could see what Sherlock really was, and decide that spending his life with him wasn't worth the little smiles, the warm mornings, the heated kisses after all. Temporary bliss.

"When could I have told you? You would've never agreed to this!"

"No, of course not!"

"See?"

“Well, but it's too late now, isn't it? Tell me now. Why would you do all this?”

Sherlock looked somewhere else for a long time before he looked back at John, and one word passed his lips like a curse.

"Magnussen."

 John pressed his lips together at the name. "Explain."

"I made a deal, John. A deal with the devil."

John had more than a thousand questions left. One didn't have to be a genius to see that. But just when he opened his mouth, when the rage on his face transferred to sympathy, Mycroft entered the room again. He eyed them with raised brows, no doubt taking in everything of that past scene that was still clinging to them. He walked past them, initially tapping at something through the fabric of his breast pocket and made sure Sherlock saw it. Sherlock gave him a quick nod and turned back to John.

"Talk to Mary," he whispered with steel in his eyes. This was not the time for sentimental distractions.

John took a deep breath, a long breath. Keeping in his deepest fears and swallowed anger, letting it swirl around inside of his head. He breathed out.

"Always your way."

Sherlock looked after him as he disappeared behind the door to the living room. Into the lion's den.

Mycroft was already outside, waiting. Sherlock was alone. His father came into the room, just as he went to grab his coat. He looked worried, and Sherlock knew he was making the exact same face. 

“Those two,” he started, obviously referring to the married couple. “They alright?”

"Well, you know ... They've had their ups and downs."

 

Mycroft was holding two lit cigarettes. After closing the door behind him, Sherlock joined him wordlessly and took one. They didn't talk for a while, just smoking the time away. It helped. Smoking, that was. What didn't help was the knowledge that a kiss from John would've helped him more.

"Trouble in paradise, I presume?"

Sherlock looked up at his brother in surprise, but regained his composure quickly. One long inhale of cigarette smoke. He hadn't expected him to comment on that.

"Happens in every marriage, as far as I know."

"Yes, you would know." Mycroft blew a cloud of smothered ash into the sky. "I wasn't talking about the Watsons."

Sherlock bit his lip. (Bad habit.) Had it been naive of him not to assume Mycroft would suspect something? He was a man even more observant than himself. Probably the order of his curls or the way he sat or something about John's fingers had already given away their little adventure on the train. Or it had just been the short glances they allowed to give each other that did it.

"Careful, little brother. You might underestimate what you're dealing with here." He paused there.

Sherlock couldn't even tell what he was referring to exactly. There were so many things he wished he had never had to deal with. Sadly, he was attracting evil like the wrong side of a magnet.

"But I'm glad you've given up on the Magnussen business."

"Are you?"

"I'm still curious, though. He's hardly your usual kind of puzzle. Why do you... hate him?"

Sherlock turned his head towards him. "Because he attacks people who are different and preys on their secrets. Why don't _you_?"

"He never causes too much damage to anyone important. He's far too intelligent for that. He's a businessman, that's all, and occasionally useful to us. A necessary evil – not a dragon for you to slay."

He took a long drag on his cigarette, and Sherlock couldn't hold back the little smile.

"A dragon slayer. Is that what you think of me?"

He had known someone once who had always spoken in fairy tales. The realisation let his smile fade away.

They stood quietly next to each other by the cottage, smoking. Moments like this were rare for them. Nearly unthinkable when one looked back at Sherlock's uni days. He didn't despise Mycroft. He knew that. There were days where he thought everyone within a two hundred metre radius could see that the cruel, the cold, the bitter mask was just that. A mask. John knew. He had known that so early into their friendship, and to this day Sherlock still had no idea how he did it.

"No." Mycroft looked back at him. "It's what you think of yourself."

He heard the door to the house open behind them.

"Are you two smoking?!"

Both of the boys swirled around in surprise, each holding their cigarette behind their back.

"No!" – "It was Mycroft!"

After one very suspicious look of Mummy Holmes they were alone again, and Sherlock blew out another ball of smoke above his head. For half a minute he was young again, a smug little boy who grinned to himself when his big brother had to take the blame. Adulthood provided less happy memories.

"I have, by the way, a job offer I should like you to decline."

"I decline your kind offer."

"I shall pass on your regrets."

"What was it?"

"MI6 – they want to place you back into Eastern Europe. An undercover assignment that would prove fatal to you in, I think, about six months."

Sherlock raised his gaze again, surprised at Mycroft's words. "Then why don't you want me to take it?"

Mycroft was holding his gaze. "It's tempting. But on balance you have more utility closer to home."

"Utility! How do _I_ have utility?"

He got a shrug as an answer, but of course Mycroft had to be more dramatic than that.

“Here be _dragons_.”

A long drag on his cigarette caused a frown, then a cough.

"This isn’t agreeing with me. I’m going in." He let the fag fall to the ground to put it out before going to go back inside.

"You need _low_ tar," Sherlock called after him. "You still smoke like a beginner."

Something must have made Mycroft change his mind, for he stopped in his tracks and lingered by the door.

"Also," he began with his back to his brother, "your loss would break my heart."

Sherlock thought he was going to choke on his cigarette, now coughing with wide eyes. He had never heard him say anything close to this.

"What the _hell_ am I supposed to say to that?"

"Well." He turned around. "In any case, I know my heart wouldn't be the only one, brother dear."

So many unspoken means, so many messages, a whole sea of subtlety that lay between those words. They shared a look for a long time, and for a moment Sherlock thought he had seen everything. Every bit of how much Mycroft cared, of what he had never conceded him to feel.

"Merry Christmas."

He snorted. "You _hate_ Christmas."

And Mycroft smiled. "Yes ... Perhaps there was something in the punch."

"Clearly. Go and have some more."

After some more minutes to himself he, too, dropped his cigarette to tread it out when he suddenly felt a dizziness that let his whole world fall into a black wave. He pinched his nose to regain his sense of reality, of his surroundings. Slowly, colours faded in again; the green grass, the grey stone, the red bricks of his parents' cottage.

He had no idea what just happened. As it dawned on him, it was already too late.

"John." It came out as a single breath.

He stormed into the house, or attempted to, the numbing of his limbs already taking over. _No, no, no, no, no, no_. His mind was so clouded, his sanity too far away to grasp. The world shifted and went blurry. He could narrow his eyes long enough to get a sharp image of Mycroft lying with his head on the table and with his mouth hanging open.

_The laptop..... He needed....... Was he ... Was he still breathing? ..... Had to... check......_

He could keep his wobbly legs from giving in by practically throwing his arms over the kitchen chair. Someone was entering the room, he could hear their steps, loud, pulsing against his veins, echoing...

He blinked his eyed open to see a dark figure walking towards him.

_Red. Bright and red. Danger. Where was..._

"John."

A mocking chuckle was heard.

"Oh, Sherlock."

Oh god, it was- But of course, it was-

"Will you ever learn from your mistakes? There are some people who call you a genius, you know?"

It was the tone of voice with which she had once said words to him he would never forget.

_Oh, Sherlock._

At the wedding – her wedding – she had used every opportunity to rub in the pain.

_Neither of us were the first, you know._

But was he going to be the last?

His mind shut down to the picture of one cruel smile and cold blue eyes.

 

***

 

When he woke up there was pain. There was the dull ache, the heavy pressure that felt as though his head was weighted down by the force of a cloud scraping mountain. He was distantly aware that he was lying somewhere and that wherever this somewhere was had a hard surface. Once he blinked, the light broke through his eyes like a cutter knife. So bright. _So very bright._

The back of his head felt wet. Was he bleeding? Next question: Had someone tried to turn his stomach inside out and got through with it? He just wanted to throw up.

Blinking only made his head feel like it was bleeding out. Maybe part of him wished for it to happen. What was going on? He was not in any way religious, but was this what hell felt like?

He thought he saw something lying on the floor beside him, but every movement was slow, every attempt painful. One of his hands was cold, colder than the other, and only after a while he realised that there was something hard to his palm. His grip tightened around strong metal. In this moment he thought he could taste it on his tongue (blood?) but his brain was just messing with his perception. Funny, he thought. He had once put so much trust in it.

Through a gap of his squinted eyes he noticed the hard contrast of the white floor he was lying on and the black thing in his hand. John's Sig. His heart stopped almost long enough to do damage. _John_.

His own gun – the gun Sherlock was holding! – was pointing at him. There he lay, on the floor beside him. He could see him through a pair of legs, the legs of a chair that separated them further. He looked so calm. So unconscious. Bleeding away. _My God_.

What had happened to them? John bleeding on the floor, the gun in Sherlock's hand. Had he shot him? Was he responsible for the death of the only person he had ever loved, ever given his life for?

Panic washed over and through him like a thunderstorm. He wanted to move, get up, crawl, at least, just to get to him, to take his pulse, to look into that beautiful face and find it only sleeping, please, please! Sherlock's breathing was so shallow now, too fast, not enough oxygen to keep his thoughts steady. His hands were shaking around the weapon he had once trusted. The room shifted. His head was only a source of pain.

If he had killed him, he wouldn't hesitate to lead the gun to his own mouth and end it here and now. Just like Moriarty had.

He moved the Sig to keep it closer, but he was stopped in his movement by a black dress shoe which was stepping onto it, holding it in place.

"Mr Holmes."

The voice was too familiar, paper thin and disgusting.

"I'm so glad you could find the time to pay me a visit. I understand Christmas can be a busy time of year."

Magnussen.

But something wasn't quite right. Except for everything that was wrong and horrible, of course. His words sounded smug and clever, but his voice lacked the confidence. He sounded much more like the coward he had found in his apartment the night the true face of Mary Morstan had been revealed.

His hand twitched with the biting instinct to just aim for the space between his sharklike eyes and shoot right through it. But his foot was still pressing the gun to the ground, making Sherlock's weakened limbs ache from his attempts to pull it away. Magnussen bent down to him to take John's gun to himself.

"Ah, ah, ah," he warned him like he was a misbehaving animal. But once his face was close enough, he could see fear in those steely eyes. "Just look at what you've done this time."

Sherlock had closed his eyes at this point to escape the stinging brightness around him and to bear the pain those words encouraged, and his heart was surely bleeding, oh, what had he done to John? Had Sherlock been the one to hurt him? Was he... oh God. Oh please, oh God, this had to be a nightmare. It could not be real, could it? This bright room designed like his personal hell, for him to wait for all the demons to be summoned. One of them was here already. But with his eyes closed he didn't see that Magnussen hadn't looked at him as he said those words. He had looked right ahead.

With all the strength he had left he pushed himself off the floor, but his body was still greatly numbed. He was crawling on all fours to reach John. He tried to gain back rationality, search for an entry wound that suggested that he had been shot, _that he had shot him, say it, remember it!_ , but all he could see was that a sleeping beauty, long eyelashes under which he knew dark blue eyes were waiting for him, the sight of him calming him even now. To think he could have lost all this, all of everything he needed to breathe, _God no_ , tears, not now, not here. He could hear himself sobbing so desperately and his eyes filled with hot tears of fear and panic and exhaustion.

"John." He was whispering this, but repeatedly, and again and again, "John, oh, John," like a mantra that could somehow make it better. His hand stroke softly over his cheek, he hadn't shaved for approximately eight hours now, and he missed him. He needed him now, he needed him to tell him what he should do, how he could somehow save them both.

"Wake up. Please wake up. I need you, John. John, don't leave me. _John_."

There was a loud clap behind him that resounded in his chest. It continued in the form of a few slow claps, like a mocking theme playing the song that would bring them to their graves.

"Good! Very good. I have to say, I really enjoyed this. Couldn't have played that scene out better myself."

The clapping stopped once she spoke. It was the high, venomous voice of an old friend. Mary Morstan stepped further into the room. She had been there the entire time.

"I didn't even know you could make your face look so desperate, Sherlock. But oh well," the sarcasm was leaking out from all sides of the words she spoke. She shrugged. "I guess everything you do you have to do with brilliance, don't you, Sherlock Holmes?"

Her voice dropped there in the end, as if some slimy kind of hatred had gotten stuck in her throat. "That's what he always called you, you know?" She nodded towards the unconscious figure of John on the floor next to him. "Never fucking shut up about you." Her tone was oh so bittersweet.

Sherlock wanted to say something, ask questions, deduce. Use some of that brilliance everyone accused him of. But his head was too full and entirely empty.

"Is- is he...? H-Have I?"

That brought an ugly smile to her overexposed features. But her expression changed and a louder growing background noise shifted her attention out of the company of the three men. It was the rhythmic and dominating sound of one pair of heels echoing from the high ceilings of Appledore. The sound suddenly stopped when it was the loudest, and all of its dominance was replaced by a woman with long dark hair in a black tight suit who was standing in the door. The woman's face was hidden by who they knew as Mary, whose face had lost all of its playful mockery and was now displaying the strict look of a soldier.

But Sherlock already knew. Even before the woman opened her mouth to speak.

"Alright, M. You've had enough fun for now. Let's get to business."

Business. Spoken like a consulting criminal. And that should be what she really was, what she had been all along.

_Janine Hawkins._

A woman no one had heard of before the wedding. The bridesmaid. Seated next to Sherlock. _So close_. Being Magnussen's P.A. _So convenient_. Offering to be … _a friend?_

 

_We could've been friends._

 

_I wish you weren't … whatever it is you are._

 

 _Mr Holmes, you're going to be incredibly useful._  

 _But no sex, okay?_  

 

 _Just once would've been nice._  

 

 _Solve me a crime, Sherlock Holmes._  

 

_I have a really bad feeling about this, Sherl._

 

 _I'm not just a secretary._  

 

_I know what kind of man you are._

 

And he had been dumb enough to want to believe her. She had been willing to be close to him, to let him fake a relationship with her. She had been the reason he had been able to operate on that Magnussen case. _She had been the one to let Mary into his apartment!_ She had been the one to show him the corpse of her neighbour, the head in the fridge, the poem with his initials on him. All meant for him. That day he had almost been shot again. What else had she initiated? And why?

_Why, why why?_

But in the end, was he really that surprised?

Mary had taken John's gun out of Magnussen's hands and was watching him take it all in, beginning to comprehend what horrible knowledge he had lacked for far too long. Again. _So slow_. Mary, or just M as Janine had called her, looked fairly unimpressed. She wasn't the only one to hold a gun.

The muzzle of Janine's handgun found the back of Charles Augustus Magnussen's head, and he swallowed loudly.

"Come on, don't be shy. Go right ahead."

He seemed to instantly know what was demanded of him, so he got up quickly and a second later his bony fingers took hold of Sherlock's shoulders to pull him away.

"No!" It came out in a whisper. They couldn't pull him away from John now! He wouldn't allow it.

Panic was making his hands shake as he tried to hold onto something, to stay with him without hurting him, but Magnussen was already pulling him up and his weak body couldn't help him.

"So sorry, Mr Holmes."

His voice was close to his ear, but distant in his head, his mind clouded in a fog of deductions and realisations and _no, John, I won't leave you, don't make me leave him, John!_

"Don't worry, Sherlock." Mary's voice came through like the monster in a nightmare one could not run from. "I will take care of John."

They brought Sherlock out on the terrace. The sun was just going down. The view was beautiful. Sherlock was using the time away from John to focus, to get his thoughts in order. He tried to blend out everything for the sake of figuring out _her_. The missing link between all the pieces.

"Quite lovely out here, isn't it?" she asked him. "I thought you might like that. A shade of melodrama. This is where it's going to end, Sherlock."

In that moment M arrived with John by her side. He hadn't seen him this miserable in a long time. Not since that one night in Baker Street when Mary's fake identity had been revealed. The pain of that look on his face struck right through him. It relit the burning that had long been inflicted on his heart. John turned his head towards his wife and his expression turned to hatred, to disgust at standing so close to her.

That was how it was going to end, she had said. Sherlock by Janine's side. John by 'Mary's. Magnussen was kneeling on the ground between the two pairs, hands behind his head. Janine was still pointing a gun at him, now calmly addressing Sherlock again.

"Have you figured it out by now, Sherl?"

"He's very slow these days," said M, then sarcastically added, "I wonder why that it is," and shot a cruel smile in John's direction.

But John Watson, despite standing around two people who could shoot him in an instant, had the nerves to speak up. ( _And why? Why are you risking your life to defend me, John, why?_ )

"This man over there," he said, pointing at Sherlock with pride in his posture and rage in his face, "is so much more than you could ever hope to be, you hear me? He's fucking incredible."

"Yes, I bet he's _fucking_ incredible," she spat back. _So she knows_.

John only sniffed. "Yes. He is."

Janine seemed bemused by the whole situation before turning her focus back to Sherlock, waiting. Waiting for him to give his part of the performance. He had no choice but to give her what she wanted.

"The crimes you two created … They were all meant for me. It's a Moriarty pattern, to watch me dance. But this time you didn't mean them as a distraction, did you? They were a torment. The Little Mermaid and the poisoned heart as a metaphor for my own, the man hanging from the ceiling and the head in the fridge that resembled my own appearance, and then the dog..." He paused and swallowed. "...going so far as to place that in my very own flat after almost shooting me again. I wonder which one of you it was who fired the shot that day."

"Not that bad so far, my boy, but I would never get my hands dirty. I mean, what do you have an assassin for, eh? But, and I know this is going to be hard for you, Sherlock, that last shot wasn't meant for you. It was meant for the pet."

She came very close, started to circle him, to pin him down with big brown eyes. "And now _think_. The one thing you missed, the one question you are still asking yourself, the one thing you wanted to be."

She tried to get into his head when he was giving his best to figure out her previous words. He closed his eyes, refusing to look. "But that doesn't make sense."

"Redbeard, Sherlock. _Redbeard_."

"That shot was designed to kill me. A good assassin would know that, wouldn't she?" His eyes snapped open, falling on M. And there he had his answer.

Janine stopped in her tracks. "What?"

For the first time in a long while the woman they knew as Mary Morstan truly looked ashamed.

"Is that so?" Janine asked her directly. She slowly grew furious with that new knowledge. "But wasn't the plan to burn the heart out of him, hmh? Wasn't the plan to show him what loss feels like? Don't tell me that your own emotional involvement got in the way of that, Moran!"

So Mary – _Moran!_ – had been supposed to kill John instead. But she couldn't do it. Her feelings for John forbid her to. Or the chance to finally get rid of Sherlock so easily had seemed too good to pass on.

"It was my mistake. I was tempted. I slipped. This won't happen again."

It gave Sherlock enough time to finally pick up every last piece and put them all together. If all of this truly was about revenge ( _show him what loss feels like_ ) it inevitably meant that...

_Jim Moriarty_

_Janine Hawkins_

 

_Jim Hawkins_

 

_Treasure Island_

 

_The pirate cases. The murders, the clues._

_It had all been there, all waiting to be picked up and he had failed to see it._

 

_Always such a disappointment._

 

So she really was Jim Moriarty's...

"Sister!"

Janine grinned up at him, broadly and creepily. "At last, my boy. At last!"

He had read that book several times, and yet that connection had never occurred to him. Because people like them, bad people, vicious people, shouldn't be allowed to be Jim Hawkins. Jim Hawkins was a boy who loved adventures, who saw himself faced with danger and defeated it. As a boy Sherlock had always been Jim Hawkins. That was why people like Moriarty never would be.

He wasn't even looking at Janine but at Moran instead. This set all of his buried fury loose, and it must have burned behind his eyes. “But why you? Why are you still here? You could've gotten out of that pattern when he was dead. I could have helped you! We could have found a way to protect you.” He had long noticed that he had to talk about her as only herself now. She was not pregnant.

"Protect me?" She laughed. "Oh, Sherlock. But haven't you noticed? You suck awfully at protecting people. I've always preferred to protect myself."

With those last words she raised the gun in her hand and fired a bullet right through Magnussen's head. The look of shock and brutal fear would forever be imprinted to his face. He dropped dead to the floor.

Panic sprung across John's features and he took a few steps away from her. He was now unable to hold it back and started shouting. "What happened to the baby?!"

She turned back to him with the air of a person after a long day of relaxation instead of someone who just shot a man. "What baby?"

"You never were pregnant, were you?" And he laughed hysterically. "Oh fucking hell! You let me believe you … What are you?! What kind of monster could do all this? How has no one you ever met had the guts to blow your brains out already?"

Moran only tilted her head like that unimpressed reptilian being that she was.

Janine was still smiling. "Uh, I like this."

"What do you want?" Sherlock asked.

She shrugged her shoulders like she had just been asked what she wanted for dinner. "Revenge. A little bit of fun on the way. The thing is that I can't kill you, Sherlock. You know I can't. He wouldn't let me. He would want you to kill yourself. Otherwise, where would be the charm in that?"

"Sherlock."

He heard John's voice distantly as she came closer. Her voice brought the only clear message in a whisper and she took his hand. They were both holding the gun, Janine leading both their hands up until the end of it graced his throat.

"Kill yourself."

John took a step forward to interfere, but the touch of his own gun to the back of his head stopped him. Moran called him back in a sing-sang voice. "Jo-ohn."

Janine's eyes bored themselves into Sherlock's own as she took a step back, let him hold the pistol on his own. She had given him death's little baby and he could not even move.

"It won't hurt," she promised sweetly. “You know how quickly the bullet will fly through your skull." Her voice turned into a whisper, and Sherlock mouthed the words with her like a prayer. "One thousand two hundred feet per second."

Her hard stare was a challenge, each word brought him closer to losing before the game had already begun. "Why are you still here?" _And why indeed?_ "You should've gotten down with him. It should've been your destiny. Jim knew you were _made_ for him. What a beautiful ending you could've had. But now? Look at you now. Do you really think you're not the same pathetic man you used to be?"

John closed his eyes helplessly as he was forced to listen to what her destructive tongue was telling him. Now that he knew of Sherlock's insecurities, of his inner self-depreciation, this here hurt more than it ever could before. "Sherlock."

And Sherlock, lovely, brilliant Sherlock, he looked at her with wide eyes, and he listened.

"You're nothing but just the same queer little man with the drug problem, the same lonely freak in the funny hat, always secretly on the verge of suicide. And you know it. You know it's true. You think you're still here because of him? You think that he loves you?"

All this time John tried to talk over her, tried to get Sherlock to hear him louder in his head, to blend out that voice of the witch who called herself Janine.

"Don't listen to her, you know it's not true, you know she's lying, she's lying, _she's lying_!"

"SHUT UP!"

She really ought to be Moriarty's sister, didn't she? The same deadly look of the wild maniac was owned by her dark eyes as she lost her composure. The gun trembled in Sherlock's hand when he had it pointed at her head now, but he quickly let it sink down again. Moran, however, was still aiming for Sherlock's skull.

"Good boy," she whispered. She was closing the gap of distance. "Now do the world a favour, Sherl. You can end all of this. John will be safe. London will be safe. No more murders."

"Oh God." John was so very helpless. One false move and they would all be dead.

"So many innocent lives, baby, so so many. They died because of you. Just because you couldn't shut your fucking mouth." Closer and closer she came, and Sherlock's hands were shaking violently. "You like being the hero, don't you?"

His voice was but a whisper. "I'm not a hero."

As hers was toxic sugar. "I know."

She took one final step and kissed him.

Moran was clearly affected by the sight of this. She watched the two of them with widened eyes, shifting her focus and full attention somewhere else for too long. Too long for John to not take his chance. He clenched his hand to a fist and was aiming right for her solar plexus, where his punch landed and drew all the breath from her lungs.

She stumbled backwards and he took the gun out of her grip to let it fall back into his hand, just where it belonged. She took a few deep breaths before she, with the reflexes of a wild predator, swung her body around and threw her leg up until the heel of her shoe was on eyelevel with his face. But John's own reflexes stepped in before she could kick his teeth in. He held her foot in his palm in mid-air, pulled her forward and slapped the gun right across her face as hard as he could. She lost any balance and a load of blood, just before she landed on the hard ground with a cracking noise and a probably broken nose. John had never felt so good after a break-up.

When John turned around to point the gun at Janine, he saw that she had taken advantage of shocking Sherlock to motionlessness to take her own gun back and point it at Sherlock.

Moran crawled over the floor in pain. "She will make you suffer for what you just did."

John was just so tired of her. "Shut up or I swear you're not getting out of here alive."

She looked truly scared there for a second, trying to figure out if she could believe him. "You wouldn't."

"Believe me. I would."

Janine turned her head to smile at John with this creepy smile of intensity that he remembered only too well. "Oh, John. I can see now why he likes you."

She turned back to Sherlock. "Well, well, sexy. Turns out you don't even know when it's wise to kill yourself." The way she looked at him was almost pitying, like she was looking at a poor child on the street. "But we knew that, didn't we?" She sighed. "I guess, I have to get my hands dirty this time. I'll just have to kill both of you now."

And it only took a single shot.

The wild fluttering of birds' wings was heard in the distance. The night was never silent again. There was the deep rumbling of a helicopter, but they didn't hear. They didn't hear anything after the last two screams that struck like lightning through the cold, and what was left was only white noise.

Two screams. One from John. One from Mary.

Janine had fired the shot to pierce through Sherlock's heart, but John had jumped forward just in time to pull him down with him. The bullet had not missed. It had demanded a victim, striking right through John's flesh. So while John was keeping still, breathing hard on the ground, bleeding, they had not seen the red dots that spread out over the terrace. One of them splitting the air to eliminate Janine Moriarty. No one was left standing.

Moran was crawling towards Janine's motionless body, crying out like she had lost everything that had been left. There was a voice coming from one helicopter that sounded a lot like Mycroft, but there was something unusual to it. A tremble.

"Mary Morstan, put your hands behind your head."

There had never been so much bundled hatred in anyone's face before than could be seen behind her eyes in this moment.

"NO!"

She picked up the gun on the ground and aimed for Sherlock's head.

"Drop the gun!"

"What have you done?!"

She screamed again, forced to let the weapon fall as someone shot her hand. It was over. Any chance of revenge was lost. It had all been for nothing. She looked back down at Janine and took her pale form into her lap. Gently, likely the most gentle move she had ever known, she stroke her long hairs out of that sleeping face, bleeding onto her from her wounded hand in the process. "No, no, no, no, no, no." It was all over now.

A few metres away John was looking at Sherlock like he was the last light of his life. Even though the man was crying, was crying his eyes out in uncontrollable streams of salty tears, making his face shine brighter in the damp moonlight.

"I'm sorry, John, I-I couldn't move. I'm so useless. I couldn't protect-"

"Shhh, no. No, don't say that." His voice was so very weak already. "Sherlock, you are the wisest and bravest human being I know."

Suddenly John huffed out a laugh.

"What?"

"You have no reason to complain, really. Look at you. You gorgeous thing." John's arm was too weak to reach up and brush one tear from his face. Sherlock met his hand halfway. Lacing their fingers together like it was meant to be. The only way he would accept him to die. With their hands intertwined. _Together_.

John's voice was so quiet through the howling wind and the helicopters.

"You've died for me too often. Don't you think it's my turn now to die for you?"

"No, don't. John, stop this."

Sherlock's throat was thick with the ever-growing lump of panic and loss and fear, and somewhere in this storm of thoughts he was convinced that John wouldn't dare to die. That he wouldn't even know how to, and how could he even? He was a doctor, he was supposed to fix things, he was an expert on the living. What did he even know about dying? And yet he was still a soldier. They were known to be the instruments of so-called greater causes. Willing to die for what they loved most.

His voice was a broken mess, and his mind set to an endless loop of _Please, God no, I can't lose him, I can't lose him, can't lose him, they can't take you from me, no!_

John mouthed his final words before his eyes fell close, and Sherlock would always know how to read them. Always.

"No, John, keep your eyes open. Stay awake. Stay with me. I will carry you forever, I swear. John. John? I'll never let you go, keep breathing. John, you have to keep breathing. Don't leave me here. Please. You can't leave me here. Don't leave me. Breathe, you idiot! Breathe!"

"Sherlock."

Mycroft was kneeling down beside him.

"No. Don't do this."

He wasn't sure who Sherlock was speaking to. He supposed it didn't make a difference now. All their hearts were still as broken.

"If you want to help him, you have to let him go, little brother."

"No!"

John was caught in this black bubble of underwater numbness, everything slowly fading away. His own voice was echoing in the dome of his mind, repeating what he had failed to say at last. His last words to Sherlock.

 _I love you_.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the Holmes brothers scene I worked with the transcript made by [Ariane DeVere](http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/68242.html).
> 
> Today's Dream:  
> [I the Mighty - The Frame II: Keep Breathing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IoUDExtevk)
> 
>   _I will lay with you forever if you just keep breathing._  
>  _Oh, don't you know I will never let you go._  
>  _Oh, don't you know I will never let you, never let you._  
>  _We can't afford love, they're already coming for us, for us._


	15. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The psychopathic wife, the Moriarty substitute, the love confessions, this new kind of proximity they had yet to discover. That one more time they had once again barely escaped death that added another drop to the glass full of fear and anxiety and trauma. But this was what they shared now. They shared their issues and raw edges and broken pieces and fixed each other with plasters that read _'I accept you, I take you, I'll have you just the way you are'._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Welcome to the last chapter.  
> I don't have much more to say except for thank you! Thank you for reading, for commenting, for leaving kudos.  
> I always struggle with planning long-term projects through, so actually making it to the end of this fic is kind of a big deal for me.  
> I hope the ending will please you (at least a little), and maybe we'll see each other again at one of my other fics or you'll see me at one of yours! Let's keep supporting each other. It's important.

_He had lost it all._

It was the first thought flashing through him, a streak of lightning that struck his heart so hard that it restarted and his eyes snapped open. Sherlock's body turned to life with him feeling like he had to cough his lungs out. He was writhing, curling into himself as his cheek scratched against wet sand. His fingers searched for something to hold onto and when they didn't find it they sunk into yellow ground, his limbs far too weak to support himself. He threw up.

To his right there was the ocean, as blue and as wide as it had ever been. It looked a lot more welcoming, more calming when he was right inside of it, a great wooden ship separating him from its force. Now it just reminded him. He threw up again, waves of salt water. The ocean had fed on what he loved so dearly, had devoured it all like a monster showing its true colours.

A few metres he crawled forward, the hot sun shining down at him in the middle of a cloudless day. His head fell into the sand again. His eyes burnt from all the salt, probably all dry and bloodshot. He watched the ocean for a while, hypnotised by the tides, creeping towards him and being pulled back by the invisible force of the moon, the foam and the movement of the waves. It was calming. He thought he could fall asleep to this. Stranded, broken, dizzy. He could fall asleep and never wake up again. It was tempting.

He blinked and blinked until his eyes fell shut.

Footsteps were splashing through the water. They were fast, were running towards that motionless body on the beach. It shook itself, and its long fur let it rain across the sand, across Sherlock's pale face.

He heard the sound of shallow panting. A bark.

He opened his eyes as he felt someone breathing heavily into his ear and a wet nose touching his face. A soft whine brought him back to consciousness. With knitted brows he turned his head to look into a pair of big round button eyes inside a bunch of curly fur.

"Redbeard?"

The dog barked once more, but quieter this time, with an understanding of how close he was to Sherlock's ear and how loud he could be. He buried his nose in his hair and sniffed him some more, clearly happy or relieved, as far as he could express this without a tongue to speak words.

"I know." Sherlock smiled weakly, petting his head while he was still lying there like the dead man that he felt he was.

"I've made quite a few mistakes in my life, haven't I?"

Redbeard turned around suddenly. Sherlock thought he was going to leave him now. He had left him first. It was only fair. But the panting came closer once more, and he opened his eyes to see. Redbeard had come back and carried something between his teeth. It was his hat. His Captain's hat, who would've thought? So that was all that was left of his sinking ship, his crew, his dignity. The last evidence of a life that could have been. A life of freedom.

He took the hat in both his shaking hands to turn it over and put it on, but then, in the blink of an eye his trained eyes observed without his permission. He stopped. Forced himself to sit up straight. Weak limbs met heavy bones, but he sat. On the bottom of the dark brown pirate hat lay a little scratch of paper, yellow and crinkled. Sherlock picked it up to read that one line, scribbled in smeared black ink.

Redbeard looked at him, waiting patiently.

His eyes widened as he heard his own words spoken back at him in his head.

_'I will always be there. Always.'_

"Always," Sherlock whispered.

Redbeard's wet nose touched his cheek in silent comfort.

"To John?"

He read the line again, and again and again.

"I have to go back. To John."

Redbeard gave a little bark.

"I'm sorry, boy. It's not my time yet."

Redbeard tilted his head and stuck his tongue out.

"Maybe next time. Maybe I can bring John, too, next time. You'll like him."

Redbeard gave an enthusiastic bark.

"But first it's time for me to wake up."

Sherlock didn't feel weak anymore. He didn't feel anything except for certain determination, one thought occupying his mind, echoing from the walls of his head to be heard over and over again.

" _To John_."

 

***

 

The ride to the hospital was dreadful. The ride back home was impossible.

Mycroft had arranged two more helicopters to take care of the mess that was left. One for emergency. One for the corpse. Moran they brought to a car in handcuffs. She wasn't their priority right now.

Sherlock refused to leave John's side, even though seeing him like this would haunt him forever. He guessed he had it coming. He had made John see his own death, too, after all. Now both of them were equally acquainted with the feeling of _So this is it_. It made room for the realisation of _So this was me, this was my life._ So that when they looked in the mirror the next time there would be only a shell left to greet them, as everything that had made life worth living for had fled the picture.

It was what made the rides so dreadful. Why on most days he refused to leave at all. No matter how many times they told him John was in surgery, they weren't allowed to tell him anything, no, he couldn't stay in the hall and wait, that really was not an option, he took that option anyway.

They even checked him through once, just to find an excuse to get him into a room and off the hallways. In hindsight Sherlock doubted if this was not in fact part of one of Mycroft's ingenious plans to have him monitored by professionals. He could hear the doctor taking a sharper breath behind him once he saw the scars. Otherwise he had a few darker bruises and, of course, the bullet injury. That was at least something they could help him with.

They brought John to his room when he got out of surgery. He was still unconscious. But he was alive. A bandage was wrapped around his right shoulder. He looked shattered, oh, but he was breathing! Breathing through two healthy lungs, taking air into his still functioning body. He was still here. He hadn't left yet.

Sherlock stayed with John for several days. He wished they would have had double beds in this hospital. Sleeping separately from him scared him. He feared the times when he woke up alone, the first thing he saw being John going down and dying in his arms before he could even open his eyes, almost giving him a heart attack.

He was very certain Mycroft was blackmailing the hospital staff to not have them bother him anymore. God knew they needed every free bed they could get around Christmas, but then again, Sherlock didn't know what would happen to him if he returned to Baker Street alone. It didn't matter now. The days rushed by like the wind through crisp autumn woods, leaving behind fallen leaves and nothing of much greater relevance. Or consequence. Sherlock spent his days being tired, and that was all he would remember of them.

He was distantly aware of Mrs Hudson visiting at least once, how happy and relieved she had been to find both of them alive and in the same room. She brought some biscuits, some clean clothes and old case files that Sherlock had once nicked from Scotland Yard's archives for a rainy day. Now he wouldn't even touch them. Because the one and only book he wanted to read was the one she didn't bring.

What frustrated him the most was John's ever unconscious body next to him. They were both so tired. Their sleeping schedules were completely messed up. Sherlock always tried so hard to stay awake, but what had worked naturally for him before – the temporary control over his body's needs and cravings – had become impossible for him to master. And thus, it just so happened that in his waking hours John was fast asleep and vice versa, and that so often he would wake up to the feeling of kissed lips and a warmth around him that was not his own.

He missed him so much. Having him right there next to him only made it worse. It bloody hurt how much he was missing him, hurt more than all the whipping and all the bullet holes ever could have. Until one day he just couldn't do it anymore. Carefully and on cold feet he climbed into the other but equally uncomfortable hospital bed, trying to make himself as small and as light as possible. The first time he woke up in John Watson's arms again was the day he came back to life.

His smile woke him. His smile and the fact that he was actively rubbing his nose against Sherlock's own, his forehead, his cheeks.

"I'm dead and this is heaven," he whispered. It wasn't a question. Just something John was leaving there between them.

Sherlock didn't have the strength nor the ability to react to this with more than a huffed laugh that at the same time held back a sob. He shook his head into the pillow. "No. You're alive. We both are."

John was grinning now. "Not dead?"

"Oh, you know. Killing us. That's so three years ago."

Had someone told Sherlock one week ago that he would soon be in a bed with John Watson again, giggling like schoolboys over their own mortality, he would have kissed them. Except he wouldn't have because he never wanted to kiss anyone but John ever again, and over and over again for the rest of his life. Which was precisely what he leant in for to do just now.

He felt like actual years had passed since he had last put his lips to John's. They were split and dry, his nose was cold for some reason as it rubbed against his, and his breath was hot and moist against his cheek. The kiss broke with a soft sound and they went in for a new one, a deeper one. A tickling warm sensation ran all the way from the bridge of his nose down his cheek, and he only realised it was a tear after John had brushed it away with his thumb. His hand reached for the back of his curly head and stayed there while another tear made its way into the pillow's fabric.

"I thought I lost you." His voice was rough from sleep and broken from emotion.

John pressed his lips together and forced a weak smile on his face. His eyes were watering, but he held it back. It was all in his blue eyes what he wanted to say. All the reassuring phrases, that it was over now, _But you didn't, you didn't lose me, I'm still here_.

They both could not quite believe it yet. A part of John was still convinced that he was dead. Just as a part of Sherlock's heart still felt like half of it was missing. It would take time for them to get over this. It had taken weeks alone for them to realise that the other one really loved them. This was so new. The psychopathic wife, the Moriarty substitute, the love confessions, this new kind of proximity they had yet to discover. That one more time they had once again barely escaped death that added another drop to the glass full of fear and anxiety and trauma. But this was what they shared now. They shared their issues and raw edges and broken pieces and fixed each other with plasters that read _'I accept you, I take you, I'll have you just the way you are'_.

This right here, this tiny, uncomfortable hospital bed they hardly both fit and in which they had each other was simply the representation of their joined lives. And when they got out of here, they would be better. They would be healthier, would gain back their energy and their strength. The bruises would vanish, the scars would fade. Sherlock almost did not dare himself to think this. But there would be happiness. Pure, unafraid happiness.

 

***

 

"Well, obviously."

"Is it?" John didn't look entirely convinced, but fine lines of laughter adorned the skin around his sparkling eyes. They were sparkling because the view was wonderful. "What haven't I observed this time?"

They had their chairs placed closer to each other. John had his ankles crossed and his feet almost touched Sherlock's as he stretched them out in the space between them.

"First o' all," Sherlock continued. He sounded drunk already, and he placed his glass on the little table next to him with too much force before he picked up the emptied bottle of wine. "The things written on here … They tell you... the, you know... the things. High quality things. It's science, John. You just know nothing 'bout wine."

John chuckled into his own glass and took another sip. He had taken him out tonight. The first time in a very long time, and the first time that he could proudly claim _'Yes, I am his date.'_ Much to Angelo's delight, because of course they had gone to Angelo's. He was so kind as to give them a bottle of his finest Italian wine when they left, and they had made use of that as soon as they had come back home and lit the fireplace.

"You're cute when you're drunk."

Sherlock looked genuinely surprised at this, blinking back at him with wide eyes. A blush left its mark around his high cheekbones. John chuckled again.

After everything that had happened to them, that had been done to them, they needed this. Being back at Baker Street, a few drinks, a long night in. Sitting in their legitimate chairs and seeing the other one sit in his.

"'Tis so weird."

"What?" Sherlock asked, now having taken his own glass back between long fingers, watching the dark red liquid move in circles on the bottom of it.

John was looking up at him under long lashes. His heart grew heavier under this sudden moment of emotion and remembrance.

"Us. Sitting here. After all this time."

"After all this time." Sherlock repeated it, well knowing that they were both thinking of that very first day.

January 29, St Barts Hospital. A day that had changed everything. If John hadn't gone to the park that day, hadn't eventually turned around when Mike Stamford had called for him, had refused to come with him. He would have never known the miracle that had turned his whole life around. Maybe he wouldn't even be here today.

There was a lump swelling in the back of his throat. This was not a time to think about the dark times. Instead he looked over to him again. To the one miracle he needed, with his dark unruly curls that shone golden next to the flames, pale skin stretched over a scarred and marvellous body, still covered in tailored black trousers and a tight purple shirt.

"I love you."

Sherlock looked up again, blue eyes flickering, as happy as he had ever seen him.

 _What took me so long?_ , John wondered with the taste of regret on his tongue. So he said it again.

"I've always loved you."

Sherlock could have said anything. _'But you never said'_ or _'All the hurt that could've been avoided, all the pain, the loss, the heartbreak.'_ But he didn't. He just let out a bemused snort and leant forward in his chair.

"You're drunk."

He tapped the tip of John's nose like one would've done with a child, but John caught him by the wrist before he could retreat. They locked eyes (and it took Sherlock's breath away) as John placed a kiss on the back of his hand.

John smiled. "And you're a madman."

Sherlock let himself fall back into his chair, trying to hide the deepened pink stain on his cheeks behind his wine glass. He looked over to him again. Suddenly they both started giggling and didn't stop for a whole minute.

After the laughter had worn off, Sherlock grinned at him again. It all reminded John of his stag night. How they had been sitting here, had been drinking and laughing, and how he would have wanted to do much more, to be so much more. If it had only happened under different circumstances. But right now, right here, the way Sherlock Holmes looked at him was indescribable, was remarkable, breathtaking. He looked as if he was completely head-over-heels in love with him. Suddenly, that beautiful look of honesty was on his face. Like he had just solved something he had been right about all along.

"Marry me."

"What?" John stumbled over it at first, then got up and stumbled again, landing in the same pile of rugs that were pulled from under people's feet. He gave a nervous laugh to test the waters. But Sherlock's expression didn't change, didn't falter.

"Marry me." He didn't appear drunk anymore. He seemed as sober as a man could be, having found the eye in a storm of chaotic thoughts and confusion. "I want to go on a honeymoon. We have the money now, don't we?"

 _Yes_ , he thought and remembered. Remembered the woman who had been so thankful, the case. Anastasia who had been adamant to pay them for their good deeds. This felt like it was months and months ago.

He thought about that question that wasn't a question at all, it was a plea, a challenge, a cut out statement with only two words left in it. He had thought about this years ago. Had dreamed about it at first. About them being not two bachelors but two husbands sharing rooms and beds and all the good things and bad things for the rest of their days. _Till death do us part_. He had thought about how he would ask him, always quickly dismissing even the general idea of it. Because how could he ask him that most important question of all questions when he had already thrown away his hand in marriage so uselessly, so ignorantly?

It didn't count, that first marriage. Not technically. Mycroft had explained that since 'Mary' had used and abused a fake identity their marriage wasn't actually legal. John did not quite believe that it should be that simple, but Mycroft had smiled his dubious smile and promised to make the papers disappear. _Don't you bother, Dr Watson, don't you bother._ This had been the day he had abandoned his wedding ring, put it in a drawer in his old bedroom and hadn't looked at it since.

He didn't even deserve this right here, but it should be enough. Sherlock wasn't a man of tradition or religion or cliché. He would have been fine with never asking him for this kind of bond. It didn't prove anything, didn't make them into something better or worse. Yet Sherlock was still looking at him as if John was holding his whole life in his hands, his conductor of light, and he was just waiting for him to take it.

_Marry me._

This could be how their game ended, he realised. _Married_. Sherlock was drunk. So John decided to play along in the illusion.

"Alright."

And then they longed for each other.

They didn't know who was the first to reach out, to be on their feet. It didn't matter. Before they knew they were both standing and kissing in front of the fireplace. That John could ever be sinking back into the feeling of kissing Sherlock Holmes … The feeling of tasting his lips and knowing he had come home, knowing that of all the feelings in the world this was the one he would always remember. They would share many more kisses. It would make up for all the years and every moment in which they could've had each other's lips but didn't dare to reach for them. For this.

The bedroom had left the door open, only waiting for them to invite themselves back in. They were drawn to it by an invisible force (like the ocean to the moon) and suddenly they were horizontal, down on the bed. Hands ran over skin and clothes, and John was surprised, only now slowly waking up from the haze, that they weren't kissing anymore and, moreover, that they had been kissing all the way to the bed and to this exact moment. Sherlock was on him, staring at him with blown pupils. John stared back.

"Sherlock?"

Sherlock tilted his head, dizzily. Then John wrapped his arms around his neck, pulled him back into a breathtaking kiss and turned them over in a move that took him two seconds and a single gasp from Sherlock's lips.

"John!" He held him, held him with long fingers running through short silver hair and kept him in place. Sherlock's lips were caressing the skin behind John's ear just as John's hands wandered south. Finally he reached the zip of his suit trousers. If he didn't vaguely know how much it cost to have one of those made, he would've gladly ripped them open to get Sherlock out of them as quickly as possible. His intentions proved to be all the more difficult with Sherlock now having his whole upper body pressed against him and gently biting down on his earlobe between silent pants.

"Sherlock," John huffed out, still pulling at his waistband. It wouldn't move past the pair of prominent hipbones, for Sherlock's arse was pressed into the mattress.

After some more frustrated attempts to get him out of his clothes, he let out a big sigh that (finally) made Sherlock stop and stare.

"What?" he asked with anxious irritation.

"It's just..." John pulled on his waistband once more for demonstrative reasons.

"Oh..."

It took them five seconds of silence before they both burst into laughter. Sherlock pushed him back and into the sheets, straddling his lap. There was the molten mask of confidence on his face that John would've almost believed to be completely genuine. But he knew him too well. A blush that could be seen even in the faint moonlight crept down from his cheeks to somewhere beneath his collar. John yearned for these places. He wanted to explore every angle with his eyes, his hands, his mouth and swallow it with his senses. Swallow it or drown himself. Their clothed erections touched as Sherlock pushed his hips forward, and they both moaned in synch.

From there on it didn't take long for them to go on, to make all their buried fantasies come to life. There were hands and kisses and tongues _everywhere_ , one, two strokes, and soon Sherlock was on top of him again. It was easier for now, it was known. It was how they had made love to each other on the train, a ride (in many ways) that seemed to be so much longer ago – _ages!_ – than it actually was.

Sherlock stroke John's cock slowly, fascinated by its pulsating pink head, until it was all hard and slick. He held it by its shaft and John watched, mesmerised, as the tip of it disappeared inside of him, quivering, squeezing it with each clenching muscle.

“God, _yes_.”

Sherlock's fingers trembled and his eyes fell shut. He sunk down around him until his arse touched John's thighs. He felt _amazing_. His defined chest was glistening from a thin layer of sweat, his heartbeat chased quickly through his veins, the hammering pulse easily visible under the watchful eyes of a doctor, the wanton eyes of a lover. He was beauty, was grace and lust personified. John wanted to kiss every bit, but he didn't dare to move and lean forward just yet. He wanted to hold this moment, to make it last just a little longer. When Sherlock blinked his eyes open again, they were shimmering from the tears captured within them.

"You're so huge," he murmured in a deep rumble.

 _It was nice that he remembered his size_.

John smiled at the compliment, proud, smug, happy. They fell into a rhythm quickly, but Sherlock's legs shook heavily and it was hard for him to keep himself upright. They kissed for a while, not moving at all except for tongues, hungry mouths, and then John took the lead completely. The mattress shifted under their moving bodies as John thrust into him, his cock throbbing eagerly. Sherlock was so _fucking_ tight. Tight and beautiful, chest as flushed as the head of his prick. John felt the heavy overwhelming need to kiss him, kiss every inch of skin.

Sherlock threw his head back in the ecstasy of heat and sweet pain that turned into pleasure. John tried to put his lips to that long, long neck, to that tiny perfect freckle, but Sherlock was too far up for him, arching his back and groaning his name and unintelligible phrases like, "Yes, God, please, you- _oh_ , _John_ , you!"

John finally kissed the spot he had longed for, shoving his cock even deeper inside him as he moved farther up, and _oh fuck_ , the sounds Sherlock made! His nails dug into the hard flesh of John's backside as he screamed out his name to the thin walls, holding on tightly like a drowning man. John loved to reduce him to this. He loved it when he clung to him in moments of desperate need, when he left his mark and let John leave his own in turn. Sherlock's hands were running wild now, down to the small of his back, and up, up, up into his hair that he loved to ruin, and in between they slowed to caress the broken skin.

He knew his battle scar, the fair tissue that had caused John so much pain. But in the end, it had brought him here, right into this moment of incredible perfection. His left shoulder bore the remains of a life before Sherlock. The back of his right shoulder now bore the evidence of a choice John had made. A choice to die for a new life, of the unacceptability of a world without Sherlock Holmes in it. It was a smaller scar. One he wore with pride. Janine Moriarty had failed and they had won.

Sherlock was so vulnerable beneath him. John took care without the fear of breaking him. His thrusts lost their rhythm in this haze, the heat, so sensitive, so close. The feeling of true pleasure rushed through him and he dipped down to let his teeth sink into Sherlock's neck as the hot drops of lust pooled between his legs, electric sparks flowing down his spine, muscles clenching in his abdomen, his thighs. His balls were so full to the point of bursting, making a filthy noise when they thrust against Sherlock's perfect arse, and then Sherlock's hips snapped, rolled uncontrollably, a shout of orgasmic bliss stuck in the back of his throat. He wrapped his arms around him so tightly that it must have hurt, and then he felt him coming, coming, his cock trapped between their bodies, painting them in white stripes.

He didn't stop coming, didn't stop panting or losing the high-pitched breaks in his voice at the end of each moan into John's ear. John was so into it, so into him, and his hand drove through the slick cum over Sherlock's stomach and chest, his nipples. Another wave of pleasure rushed over him, his whole body jerking to the movements of John's hips. He stopped. _Sherlock_. Flushed, dirty, fucked. Eyes tightly shut, a soft crease building the bridge of his nose, his mouth forming the tiniest _Oh_. That was all John Watson needed. His world tilted, bringing him over the edge. His thoughts were turned to chaos before they reordered and life made sense again.

He was still a part of Sherlock, still inside of him. His cock throbbed in satisfaction, and Sherlock gave another jerk. When John bent down again, it felt like they were one, all ends of the one and beginnings of the other erased by what they had just done. _Love_.

John smiled into the crook of his neck. "I want to do this with you every day for the rest of my life."

He heard Sherlock sighing, all blissed out and smiling.

"Marry me."

John huffed out what sounded almost like a sob. He was grinning so hard and unbelieving because _maybe he really means it, maybe this is what really he wants_.

Maybe this was really something they could have. Something they were meant to have. What they deserved to be forever.

 

A little later, when they were already half asleep, John snuggled closer to Sherlock from behind. His warm body was as comfortable as it was known by now. The realisation made something in his chest bloom. He tickled the back of his neck with the tip of his nose.

"Where would you wanna go on our honeymoon, love?"

"Hmmh," Sherlock let out a low rumble. He tilted his head back to kiss John before he continued. "Let's see … Some place with a nice view for me to look at while you penetrate my arse."

_Why was Sherlock's ridiculous dirty talk always such a turn-on?_

"Oh, Sherlock."

John placed a hand on his cheek, leaning in for an open-mouthed kiss. It relit the fire between them and in their groins. They shared long seconds of hot kisses, licking into each other's mouths. Sherlock rolled over, on top of him in the heat of the moment, and kept rolling until they lost the support of the mattress and fell off the bed.

In that entanglement of intertwined limbs that they were, they started giggling like two idiots who had just fallen out of their own bed. But then John stopped, laughter dying in his throat when the broad smile never did. He stopped. He stared. Looking at everything that he could make out right in front of him. Really _seeing_ it. A future. He had never seen the world with his eyes so open, his sight so clear. He had never been this honest, never meant anything as sincerely as he meant this.

"I love you. Will you marry me?"

Sherlock was blinking. Was blinking and not moving for a worryingly long time. He cried in silence, two, three tears following a path all the way down to his chin. Anxiety clenched around John's chest. _Oh God_. Could it be that he had mistaken?

"You mean that." Sherlock whispered.

"Yes, I..." John swallowed. "Look, sorry if this was-"

"Yes."

John's eyes widened in shock. "What?"

"Yes! I do. _Yes_."

He was gaping at him, struggling to grasp those words that had just left Sherlock's mouth. _That he should ever even get to hear them._

"You..."

This time it was Sherlock's turn to put both his hands to John's cheek and wipe away the tears. He had never seen him that happy. Not even with the highest rated murder case for him to solve. He looked so different, not at all like that cold, distant, sad man that he had met all those years ago, John realised. As did he himself.

Sherlock kissed him, sweetly, softly, whispering the only words into his mouth that John would ever need to hear. The only answer to John's first and last proposal.

"I do, I do, I do."

 

It was strange what life could do. Getting two middle-aged men to sit on their bedroom floor, both crying in the middle of the night. Two husbands-to-be. It turned out that life was fluidity, changed around and with whatever one chose to make of it. Sherlock Holmes, for example, who had the brain of a scientist or a philosopher, had once wanted to be a pirate. Then one day he elected to be a detective.

Today his heart chose John Watson.

 _Till death do us part_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Dream:  
> [Billy Talent - Stand Up and Run](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjEWaaIqhkk)
> 
>  
> 
> _After all these years of being apart ___  
>  _Don't let reason try to tear us apart ___  
>  _If the compass breaks then follow your heart ___  
>  _And I hope it leads you right back into my arms ___


End file.
